


As You Wish

by Luna_Hart



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Dick doesn't know Jason is alive, Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Alive, M/M, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Dick Grayson, Resurrected Jason Todd, Scars, Slow Burn, The Princess Bride References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 05:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_Hart/pseuds/Luna_Hart
Summary: Of all the things Dick Grayson expected to find on the roof of his rarely-used Gotham apartment at two in the morning, a beaten and bloody Red Hood was not one of them.





	1. Life Is Pain

Of all the things Dick Grayson expected to find on the roof of his rarely-used Gotham apartment at two in the morning, a beaten and bloody Red Hood was _not_ one of them.

Eight minutes prior, Dick had thrown back the sheets with a sigh of defeat. Insomnia had been a common companion of late and being back in Gotham wasn’t helping. He’d worked out, meditated, and cleaned the apartment. He’d had a cup of the soothing tea Kori had given him but even that wasn’t helping tonight. In his line of work, medication was out of the question.

So instead he slipped out his window and wound his way up the fire escape to the roof. He heaved a deep breath, staring up at the stars. It was a rare cloudless night in Gotham, the stars muted by the glow of the city but he could still identify a few familiar pinpoints of light. The city hummed below him, ever restless. There was an energy here, dark and smothering. Electric in a way that felt like it was crawling under Dick’s skin.

The roof was ice under his bare feet but it helped to clear his head. He wandered the perimeter of the roof, doing his breathing exercises and slowly feeling the tension drain from his muscles. God, he was not looking forward to dealing with his family the next day. They were difficult enough to deal with on a good day, let alone on two hours of sleep. He was so tired that he didn’t see the shadowy form on the ground until he was almost tripping over it.

The metallic smell hit him about the same time he realized the the form was a body, a man by the size of those shoulders, sprawled on his side with one arm hanging precariously over the edge of the roof. “Ah shit,” Dick gasped as he dropped to a knee and carefully rolled the man onto his back. He froze, muscles tensing as his body snapped into hyper awareness. Red metal and black leather glared up at him, shining wetly in the yellow glow of the streetlights.

“Red Hood?” Dick breathed.

He hadn’t seen the man since the warehouse explosion a few months ago, where the vigilante had set a trap for Batman. Dick had arrived too late to help. He’d waded into the aftermath, finding Bruce pulling the Joker from the rubble of the building and no sign of the red masked man. Recently, there had been whispers the man had resurfaced, carving a place for himself in Gotham’s underbelly. But those were just rumours and besides, Dick no longer lived in Gotham. The city wasn’t his responsibility anymore.

He hesitated, hand still clamped to the vigilante’s shoulder. He really hesitated, staring down at the man who had murdered his way through half of Gotham just to get a swing at the Batman. Then Dick cursed as his hand came away sheathed in scarlet. He didn’t hesitate after that. Tim always said he had a tendency of being too rash, not thinking through all the ramifications of a decision until it was too late. “Do not make me regret this,” he grumbled to the unconscious vigilante as he heaved the man into his arms bridal style.

“Someone’s been eating their spinach,” Dick grimaced, trying to distract himself from the sensation of the other man’s blood dripping down the back of his shirt. It wasn’t easy getting a two hundred odd pound man covered in armour and kevlar through a window and ended with Dick sprawled on the kitchen floor with Red Hood half across his lap, hands carefully cradling the man’s head. “Okay, easy does it,” Dick murmured, easing Hood the rest of the way onto the floor. His hands fluttered over the man’s torn leather jacket, finding the man’s left arm sheathed shoulder to elbow in blood. There was more blood seeping from the man’s thigh, slowly pooling on the tiled floor.

“Shit,” he breathed.

His assessment also found two nasty looking handguns strapped to the man’s thighs along with a plethora of various knives hidden in sheaths strapped to forearms, hips, and calves. “First things first,” Dick sighed as he began to disarm the man of his vast arsenal. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any of it in case Hood woke up in a bad mood. Given his previous experiences with the man, Dick wasn’t sure if the man had any other moods.

Figuring the easy-to-clean tiles of the kitchen was better than trying to get bloodstains out of the carpets, Dick left Hood on the floor, storing the weapons in the same safe along with his own gear. He paused, then on a whim grabbed his domino mask and fixed it to his face as he snatched the first aid kit from the bathroom. Never could be too careful.

It took a while to get Hood out of the thick leather jacket and the armour underneath. He left the mask alone, worried about triggering any nasty countermeasures. Eventually he had the vigilante down to a black singlet. The man had been shot through the shoulder, blood running down the muscled arm in rivulets. Dick hissed as his own shoulder twinged in sympathy. He remembered all too well the feeling of that bullet ripping through his armour, burrowing its way through flesh. Dick bit back a curse as he felt carefully behind Hood’s shoulder. No exit wound.

He packed the wound tight and checked for other injuries. Bruises danced across the man’s torso and ribs, dipping low across one hip. Removal of the armoured leather gloves revealed bruised and torn knuckles. A deep stab wound that had struck just under the armoured plates on the side of the man’s thigh was the source of the rest of the blood. With a resigned sigh, Dick carefully stripped the man’s pants off, beyond thankful to find a pair of black boxers underneath.

He worked quickly, seeing the tremors racing through the man’s muscles as shock and bloodless symptoms started to take hold. Lying mostly naked on cold tile wasn’t helping either. He stitched and bandaged the man’s leg in record time before moving back up to the shoulder. Dick got the dressings off, steeling himself with a breath. He was beyond grateful the man was unconscious for this next bit as he picked up a set of forceps and began to explore the wound. 

The metal tip of the instrument had barely touched the wound before hands grabbed at the front of his shirt and Dick was slammed back against the cabinets. His head bounced painfully off the wood as cool metal pressed against his throat and where the fuck had the man hid that knife? Dick stared up at the narrow eye slits that betrayed nothing. “Easy,” he murmured, holding up his hands and trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

The stare down lasted longer than Dick would have preferred, especially with the sharp edge of a knife pressed against his windpipe. “Easy,” Dick repeated, unable to stand the silence any longer. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” A long stony silence followed, broken only by the two men’s breathing. Finally, the man spoke, voice low and distorted with that voice modulator of his.

“Where am I?” he asked sharply.

“My apartment,” Dick replied calmly. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Why do you care, _Bat-bitch?”_ the man sneered, knife pressing threateningly closer.

Dick hissed, feeling the sharp edge slice into his skin. “Hey, the fire escape’s that way asshole, feel free to go back to bleeding to death on my roof,” he snapped as a trickle of blood slithered down his neck. It was easy to imagine the man’s glare through the helmet. He could practically feel the heat of that glare even through the metal.

And then Red Hood laughed. The crazy fucker actually laughed, low and harsh and haunting as it filtered through the voice modulator. “Get on with it then,” he rasped. The knife disappeared only to reappear with the point nestled dangerously between Dick's ribs as the vigilante leaned back against the cabinets.

 _“Do you mind?”_ Dick bit out, sending him a sour glare.

“I said get on with it,” the man growled warningly. “Nice civies, by the way,” he snarked.

Dick flushed, glancing down at the Batman and Robin fan shirt Tim had got him for Christmas as a joke, now flecked with blood. He could feel the blush burning up his neck and up his ears. Red Hood chuckled nastily. “I’ll try and be gentle,” Dick said stiffly as he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder to steady him. A small flinch rippled through the muscles under his touch. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I know it hurts but it has to be done.”

The vigilante merely shrugged, masked face tilted away. “Life is pain,” he said, voice flat and detached sounding.

Dick forced down the shiver the man’s tone sent up his spine and focused on the task at hand. He tried to be as careful as he could as he saw the way the Hood’s muscles were cording up his neck. Through the entire ordeal, the man didn’t make a sound. Just as he extracted the last fragment, he felt Hood suddenly go lax. The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Dick’s fingers scrambled under the edge of the man’s mask, letting out a relieved breath as he felt a pulse thrum strongly under his touch. He’d just passed out. Dick cleaned and stitched the wound in record time before bandaging it tightly. 

“So now what?” Dick muttered to himself as he stripped off the surgical gloves, staring down at the unconscious man. He had an injured yet extremely violent man who had previously tried to kill him currently passed out on his kitchen floor. “Tim was right,” he muttered as he hauled the unconscious man onto his couch. “I really do make a lot of rash decisions. Like rescuing dangerous murderous vigilantes as if they were stay kittens.”

Exhaustion weighed heavy across his shoulders as he stared down at Red Hood, taking him in as he hadn’t really had the time to earlier, nor months ago when the vigilante had rained preverbal hellfire on the Bat family and Gotham alike. If Dick was being honest, he was more than a little curious about the man who had bested him, had nearly bested Bruce. If the outcome had been different, if Bruce hadn’t walked away from that warehouse explosion, maybe he’d feel differently right now. But as it was, Dick was just curious. Bruce had refused to talk about the man, had shut his oldest son down at every question. He never did say what exactly had happened in that warehouse, or how the Joker had become involved.

Red Hood was massive. Standing, he would have a good few inches on Dick. Broad in the shoulders and chest, the thin black tank top and briefs did nothing to hide the fact that the man’s muscles had muscles. A plethora of scars peppered skin that Dick was amused to see was lightly dusted with freckles. His fingers itched to remove that helmet, to see what kind of jawline would go with that set of abs.

“Fuck my life,” Dick muttered as he turned back into the kitchen and began mopping up the blood.

Dawn was slowly approaching now, if the birds were anything to go by. Dick made himself a pot of coffee and perched at the kitchen island because there was no way in hell he was going to let himself sleep while Red Hood was passed out on his couch. He kept the living room in his peripheral vision, where the vigilante hadn’t moved an inch in the last three hours.

He yawned, eyelids drooping even as he finished off the last of his fifth coffee. “Might as well make it a sixth,” Dick muttered as he got to his feet. He threw another cautionary look in the direction of the living room before moving to pour another mug of coffee. He was just putting the empty carafe back on the counter when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He whirled, just in time to see something fly towards his head. Then everything crashed to black.

 

Dick stirred with a groan, wincing against the pounding ache in his skull and the sharp pain that snapped across his temple. He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it as the light made his head hurt even more. The room swam dizzyingly as Dick sat up in his bed. He scrunched his eyes closed, hand reaching for his temple. His fingers brushed past his domino mask, which was a puzzlement. He didn’t remember going out on patrol the night before. Also even if he had, he’d never forget to take his mask off. The adhesive had a tendency to chafe if left on too long.

His fingers slide off the edge of the mask to find tape and gauze, That was even more strange. He’d been injured? And if so, how? He sat up with a wince, trying to piece together a timeline. The last thing he remembered being unable to sleep so he’d wandered up onto the roof, where he’d found….

_Red Hood._

The memories of the previous night hit like a ton of bricks and Dick was out of the bed and into the living room in a flash, fighting back a heavy wave of nausea. He found the apartment empty, the window to the fire escape closed but unlocked. Dick bit back a groan as the room spun dizzyingly. He was screwed. How could he have let himself slip like that, let Red Hood get the jump on him like that?

A horrific thought struck him and he scrambled back into his room. He threw open his closet door, fingers shaking as he punched in the security code for the safe. He flung open the heavy door to find….everything where it should be. His suit was hanging just where he had left it, his belt and escrima sticks right where they should be. What was missing was the pile of weaponry he had stripped from Red Hood. In it’s place was a note, scribbled on a dirty napkin.

  
_Might wanna change your combination, pretty bird_

  
Dick was _so_ screwed.

 


	2. Get Used To Disappointment

Dick heaved a sigh. It had been a long day. God, had it been a long day. Dealing with Bruce had always trying but these days the whole family had been getting on his nerves. The split on his temple, caused by whatever Red Hood hit him with, had thankfully brought about nothing more than raised eyebrow from Alfred and an eye roll from Tim. If Bruce took notice, he didn’t say anything.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t go back to his own apartment, seeing as how a certain vigilante now knew about its location. Stupid, not to mention sad. He’d really liked that apartment.

So instead, he was letting himself into his dingy little studio apartment down by the docks, his gear slung over his shoulder in a duffel bag. He hadn’t used this safe house in years, not since before he moved to Bludhaven. The room smelled like mildew, the air stuffy and un-lived in. He tossed the duffel onto the bed with a sigh, making his way into the kitchen. He filled the kettle and had placed it on the stove to boil when he noticed something on the kitchen table he didn’t remember leaving there.

Dick’s blood ran cold as he stepped up to the table. The folded piece of cloth was emblazoned with a cartoon version of Robin, with the words _Boy Wonder_ stamped across the chest in bold lettering. He picked it up, revealing it to be a t-shirt. Something fell free and fluttered to the ground. Dick picked up the note attached with numb fingers. A familiar slanted handwriting was scrawled across it. At least it was on a post it note this time instead of a dirty napkin.

_For your collection, pretty bird_

The fear that had settled into his bones turned hot with anger. How did the bastard find this place? Had Dick’s one act of kindness reignited some sort of crazed obsession the vigilante had with him? Would he go after Bruce next? Or Tim? If he’d found this safe house, what’s to say he hadn’t found Dick’s others here in Gotham? His reach could even extend to Bludhaven for all Dick knew. Dick was changed into his gear and swinging over the rooftops of the city before the kettle could even boil. He hadn’t planned on patrolling while in Gotham but he always packed the suit, just in case. Besides, he wasn’t patrolling tonight.

This was personal.

It didn’t take long for Dick to find him, or rather for him to find Dick. It was as if he was waiting. Dick had just touched down on a rooftop, grapnel line recoiling into his palm when a shadow passed over him. He ducked and rolled to the side, coming up in a crouch to see the vigilante lounging against the wall as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Lookin’ for me, pretty bird?” the man drawled, voice modulator turning it into an animalistic growl. “I’m flattered.”

Dick narrowed his eyes, feeling his own mask tighten around his eyes.

“Did you like my present?” Hood continued.

Dick could practically hear the smirk in his voice even if he couldn’t see the man’s face. “What do you want?” he growled.

“Want?” Hood gasped in melodramatic surprise. He pushed off the wall and stalked closer. “Can’t a guy thank a fellow mask for digging a bullet out of his shoulder without arousing all this suspicion?”

“Cut the games, Hood. I’m not in the mood,” Dick snapped, unfurling his escrima sticks with a snap.

“Oooh,” the vigilante drawled, waggling his fingers mockingly in Dick’s direction. “Birdie’s got a bite. You know, pretty bird,” Hood continued with a chuckle and then there was suddenly a gun levelled at Dick’s head. Damn, the man was fast. “You really shouldn’t bring a stick to a gun fight.”

“Not much of a gun fan,” Dick said with a shrug as he straightened up. He was playing it off as nothing but underneath his kevlar his heart was racing. It probably had something to do with the fact he was staring down the barrel of a gun. He also remembered his last encounter with the man. It hadn’t ended so well for him. “Been shot. Tends to sour ones opinion a little. And if you really wanted to kill me, you had plenty of chances last night,” he couldn’t help but pointed out. Hood didn’t seem to have an answer to that. The gun didn’t waver but he got the feeling the man was calculating his next move.

The silence was broken by gunshots and screams a few blocks away. Both men’s heads snapped around towards the sound. Dick got the distinct feeling that Hood was grinning wolfishly under the red metal. “Well, not that this hasn’t been fun, birdbrain,” Hood sneered, holstering the weapon as he leapt up onto the roof’s edge. “But I’ve got places to be, people to kill. You know how it is.” And with a little two-fingered salute, he stepped off the roof and plummeted out of sight.

Dick sprinted to the edge, just in time to see the man fire a grappling gun and swing up and over to the next building. “Oh no you don’t,” Dick muttered, flinging himself off the ledge after the vigilante. 

He caught up with Hood in a scummy warehouse by the docks, viciously pistol whipping a man with the sorry sack’s own gun. Five more men lay about, their weapons scattered next to their prone bodies. Dick landed gracefully, escrima sticks in hand just as Hood sent the man he’d been bludgeoning into ground beef slamming into the side of a nearby car. The man hit with so much force that driver’s side door dented in around his back.

The acrobat took a step forward to intervene and then he was ducking the wild swing of a baseball bat at his head. He blocked the second swing, quickly felling the man with a strike to the temple. Gunshots rang out and Dick jerked as something hit him hard from behind, one in the shoulder, one mid back. The armour did its job and Dick spun on his heels, taking that man down. He turned back towards Hood and his chosen victim, pushing the throbbing pain in his back out of his mind. 

“No, please, don’t kill me,” the man was whimpering as the vigilante loomed over him, gun in hand. “Oh, I can’t afford to make exceptions,” Hood replied with a slow drawl, clearly taking pleasure in the man’s terror. “Once word leaks out that you’ve gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it’s nothing but work, work, work, all the time.”

“Hood!” Dick called out.

Both of the men whipped around to stare at him. “You again?” the masked man called out in annoyance. “Is this what it’s like to have ducklings?”

Dick edged closer, cautious of the weapon still clenched in the other man’s hand. “Let him go,” he ordered.

“Why?” Hood chuckled, a low nasty sound made worse by the vocal distortions of his helmet. “You know what this shit does for a living?” He kicked the man in the gut, making him crumple further. “He sells children, birdbrain,” Hood snapped harshly. “ _Children!_ And you want to what? Just give him a slap on the wrist and send him to his room?”

Dick’s hands tightened around his batons until his leather gloves creaked. “This is not how we do things,” Dick said, shoving down the dark part of him that agreed with the vigilante’s tactics.

“No, it’s not how _you_ do things,” Hood sneered angrily. “Thankfully, I am _nothing like you!_ ”

Dick could see the man’s finger tighten on the trigger. “No!” he cried, flinging a batarang through the air. It clipped the gun just as it went off, the bullet slamming into the metal of the car as the gun flew from the man’s hand. Dick wasted no time closing the gap as Hood roared in fury, reaching for his other still-holstered gun.

He didn’t get to it in time. Dick fought dirty, cracking his escrima stick across Hood’s thigh injury while stabbing the other up under his armpit and jacking up the volts. The masked man’s leg crumpled, his body spasming as electricity fried his nerves. A sudden backhand sent Dick’s arm flinging wide, just barely keeping hold of the baton. Red exploded over his vision as Hood snapped his head forward, cracking his helmet full into Dick’s face. He stumbled back, a boot to the chest helping him along as blood poured over his lips.

There was a flash of silver and Dick got his batons up just in time. “Gotta say, birdbrain,” the vigilante snarled as he pressed the knife down against Dick’s cross-guard. “Your aim is worse than the Bat. He at least drew blood the last time he threw one of those things at me.” Dick only grimaced, using every inch of strength to end the deadlock and shove Hood aside.

The dangerous dance continued as sirens blared in the distance. Dick blocked another of the man’s wild swings, sharp eyes noticing how his form was getting sloppy. It was impossible to see on the black leather but the man had probably pulled his stitches with all this exertion. The sirens were getting louder so when Dick saw an opportunity, he seized it. He slammed the butt of one of his batons up past Hood’s guard and right into the bullet wound in his shoulder. Hood wheezed painfully, stumbling back a few steps. His his wounded leg finally gave up and he buckled to a knee.

“You done?” Dick snapped when Hood didn’t immediately spring to his feet.

“Fuck you,” Hood snarled, hand pressed to his shoulder. “You think you’re protecting people? All you do is delay the inevitable. You lock up shits like him,” he sneered, jerking his head in the direction of the man who had since passed out in a bloody heap. “And in a few months he’s back on the streets. You’re a fucking hypocrite! But I guess once a bat, always a bat.”

Blue and red lights flashed outside the windows and again Dick hesitated. Why did he keep hesitating? He should just leave. Hood could take care of himself and if not, it’s his own fault. But again something stopped him, just like it had on the roof. He couldn’t just leave him. He wasn’t sure what it was but he couldn’t. When Hood swayed alarmingly, painfully catching himself from face planting into the dirt with his injured arm, it was the final straw.

“Okay, we gotta go. _Do. Not._ _Shoot me_ ,” Dick said crossly as he closed the distance and slung Hood’s arm over his shoulders.

“The kids,” Hood muttered to Dick’s surprise as he dragged the bigger man to his feet.

“The cops will get them out,” he promised as he dragged the man out into the back alley just as the cops burst in through the front.

“Cops in this town don’t do shit,” the man muttered but Dick ignored him.

“Hold onto me,” he ordered as he readied his grapnel.

“Fuck that,” Hood snarled.

He pulled away from Dick's grip, swayed, and would have hit the ground if it hadn’t been for the acrobat's quick reflexes. He latched onto the front of Hood’s armoured chest plate and yanked him back into his arms. “You can’t even stand on your own,” Dick snarled, hearing the cops moving swiftly through the warehouse. “Now shut up and hold on, unless you wanna get arrested and shipped off to Arkham!”

It he hadn’t had his arms around the man, he would have never noticed the violent flinch that shook through the man like an electric shock. Slowly the vigilante wrapped his arms around the acrobat’s shoulders without saying another word. Dick blinked, but didn’t comment. He wrapped an arm around Hood’s waist and pointed his grapple towards a nearby rooftop.

 

  
By the time Dick got them back to his safe house, his wrist and shoulders were screaming from all the extra weight and his whole back ached. It was a rough landing, with Hood going sprawling and Dick barely keeping his footing. He rolled his shoulders, feeling things crunch in release as he heard Hood choke back a groan. He turned to find the man rolling himself onto his back, one arm clutched protectively to his chest. “Idiot,” Dick muttered, grabbing the vigilante by the lapels and hauling him upright. He could feel the tension radiating from the man, the defensive posture he shakily slid into. “What the hell were you thinking, going out with injuries like this? You could have killed yourself!”

“Aww, you worried about lil ol’ me?” Hood sneered, posturing like an insulted peacock. “Don’t fucking bother, birdbrain. I don’t want your pity!” Hood wrenched himself out of his hold again and this time Dick just let him fall. He hit the ground hard, a grunt of pain coughing from his lips.

Dick just rolled his eyes. “Good, because you aren’t getting it,” he muttered. Hood just flipped him off, shoulder shining wetly in the dim light. “You’ve pulled your stitches,” Dick pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest with a sigh.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” the man spat through gritted teeth, pressing a gloved hand to his shoulder.

“Ugh, fine. Come on,” Dick huffed, holding out a hand. “I'll patch you up. _Again_.”

Hood stared at him, body language wary. “You’ve been awfully concerned about my health these past two days. Why do you care?” he asked, still sounding hostile but also a little curious.

Dick gritted his teeth, annoyed because he really couldn’t answer that question, even to himself. The problem was…well, he shouldn’t care. This was the same man who had almost killed him, who had almost killed his foster father. He _really_ shouldn’t care. And yet…

  
“Because I really don’t want to have to dispose of your body after you bleed out on my roof. It’d be a hassle,” he sighed. Hood stared at him for long enough that Dick’s arm started getting tired. “Look man, I don’t really care what you do but—,” he started, words cut off as a leather covered hand slapped into his.

“You so much as look at me funny, I’ll kneecap you,” the man stated. He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that Dick didn’t have any doubt he would do it.

Before long, Dick once again found himself sitting across the vigilante, sewing sutures into his shoulder and once again the man was stripped down to his under layer. It took all of Dick's self control to keep his eyes focused on the man's wound and not stare at the way the thin black material hugged just right in all the right places.

_You literally just stopped this man from murdering someone in cold blood ten minutes ago. Get it together, Grayson._

Hood's armour and jacket piled on a nearby chair. He had a gloved hand was resting lightly on top of his gun, set on the kitchen table beside him. “That’s really not necessary,” Dick said, eyeing the way the man’s finger hovered warningly above the trigger.

Hood just snorted rudely. “Your nose is broken,” he snarked, chin jutting out towards Dick’s face as the acrobat finished bandaging his shoulder. “Yeah, and whose fault is that?” Dick snapped waspishly. The bruises were starting to set in, aching fiercely. He was tired and angry and irritated and so over it. Hood just chuckled, the sound low and nasty as it filtered through the voice modulator.

“There, good as new. So long as you let it heal this time,” Dick said sternly. He yanked off his bloody gloves as he watched Hood out of the corner of his eye carefully slip back into his gear. The man paused, midway into shrugging on his leather jacket.

“You want me to set your nose?” he asked, tone seeming almost gentle even thought it was garbled by the voice modulator.

Dick blinked at the tone. He’d never heard the man speak like that before. Still, he wasn’t about to trust the man anywhere near his face. “I can do it, it’s fine,” he said stiffly.

“Whatever, suit yourself,” Hood muttered as he made his way to the window. 

“Let’s not make this a habit, yah?” Dick called after him. 

“No promises, pretty bird,” Hood replied as he slide the window open.

“Who are you?”

Hood froze with one leg out the window. He stood as if a statue, comically half in and half out of the apartment, mask in profile. “No one of consequence,” he finally said, voice soft and sad sounding.

Dick swallowed, feeling a thrum of...something in response to the man's tone. “I’m gonna find out, you know,” he said, once more making the man pause.

“Get used to disappointment,” Hood murmured as he slipped out of the window, leaving Dick thoroughly unsatisfied and with the nagging feeling he’d heard that quote somewhere before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be longer, I promise! xx


	3. You Seem Like A Decent Fellow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets pretty rough. You have been forewarned.

The streets stank with memories as Dick perched on a metal crossbeam of the half finished high-rise, looking down on cars the size of ants. He’d returned to Gotham under the pretence of helping Batman track down Scarecrow, who had once again slipped custody but in truth it was something else that drew him back to the city he had once called home.

And said reason was perched below him, tucked into the shadows of the crossbeams. In his hands was, of all things, a book and the vigilante actually seemed to be reading it. Dick may have been watching long enough to see the man turn a few pages.

“If you’re trying to read over my shoulder, you’re a couple stories too far away."

Dick bit back a curse. How had the man had spotted him? He’d been trained by Batman for christ’s sake. Yet Hood always seemed to be one step ahead of him. He swung down through the iron girders to land lightly beside the red masked man. Just as he landed, Hood flung the worn paperback over his shoulder. He was quick, but not quick enough that Dick caught side of the title before it fell forty stories to hit the pavement below with a barely audible thunk. “The Princess Bride? Really? I wouldn’t have pegged you for the romantic comedy type,” he said, unable to keep the Cheshire grin off his lips.

“Don’t forget I know where you live,” the bigger man growled menacingly.

Dick just chuckled rather than take the threat seriously. “Well, you see like a decent fellow. I hate to die,” he teased.

“Oh screw you,” Hood muttered.

“Wow, couldn’t think of a better comeback than ‘screw you’. Are you feeling okay?” Dick snarked, curious how far he could push his luck before the vigilante threw him bodily off the building.

“How’s your face feeling?” the man retorted. “Get your nose set okay?”

Dick just shook his head with a chuckle, leaning back against the concrete wall as he let one leg dangle over the beam. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he smirked. Hood just flipped him off and the two men lapsed into an almost comfortable silence.

It was surprisingly peaceful, just the two of them, listening to the hum of traffic below. It was the vigilante who broke the quiet first. “So what are you doin’ back in town, pretty bird?” Hood asked, giving Dick a once over. “You miss me or somethin’?”

Dick swallowed thickly, the man’s words hitting a little too close to the truth for comfort. “Crane,” he said simply instead. Hood hummed, nodding his head as if he was expecting that answer. Maybe he was.

“Any leads?” he asked, sounding fare to innocent for Dick’s comfort. He narrowed his eyes.

“What, you hear something?” he asked suspiciously. Hood shrugged, muscled shoulders rippling gracefully.

“Oh, you know. A little birdie told me about a shipment down at the docks. Lands tonight. Something new and scary, if you catch my drift.”

That fit with the whispers Bruce had gathered. He’d heard Crane had been trying to find a new way to get his wares into Gotham. They just hadn’t figured out where or when. “We better get moving then,” Dick said as he got to his feet. A vice-like grip wrapped around his wrist and yanked him back down, almost sending him tumbling back off the beam. “What the hell, Hood?” he snapped, whipping around to find the man’s mask inches from his face.

“You want the intel, you keep the Bat out of it,” Hood snarled. The barely controlled rage under the words made Dick want to physically recoil. He could feel the other man’s tension, his muscles coiled tighter than a piano wire so very close to snapping. “What’s it gonna be, pretty bird? Gonna prove you can fly without being tied to Daddy’s apron strings?” the man sneered.

Dick’s mind whirled. This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t go in without any back up beyond a psychopathic vigilante. And yet the next word out of his mouth was “Okay,” which probably said a lot about his decision making skills.

 

They landed softly on the docks, side by side. The sewer smells immediately assaulted the senses. If he hadn’t been wearing his mask, Dick knew his eyes would be watering. As it was, his nose burned like he’d just inhaled bleach and the stench coated his throat. Swallowing his revulsion, Dick followed Hood as he stole quietly up towards the back of the warehouse.

Out the corner of his eye, Dick saw the vigilante’s hand stray towards his hip. His hand snapped out, gripping Hood’s forearm. He felt the muscles flex under his hand as the man recoiled from the touch but Dick wouldn’t let him go. “No killing,” he hissed.

“Don’t begin to assume you’re calling the shots here,” Hood sneered, using his height to loom threateningly above Dick.

The acrobat just blinked, unimpressed. _“No killing,”_ he repeated, escrima stick crackling menacingly. It was a silent battle, one Dick was unwilling to back down from.

Surprisingly, Hood did.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Hood drawled with a mocking bow but he did re-holster the weapon so Dick called it a win. Well, maybe not a win, more like a concession, but Dick would take what he could get.

They swept the warehouse quickly and efficiently, finding it mostly deserted. “Are we too late?” Dick asked as they made their way around behind a stack of shipping containers. In the next breath he found himself being yanked backwards. A leather gloved hand clamped over his mouth as his back hit the crates. He barely stopped himself from kneeing the man in the crotch. He settled for glaring crossly up at the masked man instead as he shoved the offending hand aside. Hood didn’t seem affronted, placing a finger to his mask in a shushing gesture as the sounds of men’s voices echoed closer.

They listened intently to the rattles and grunts and the scraping of heavy things on cement. Then the familiar voice of one Dr. Jonathan Crane reached their ears. A tapping on his arm drew Dick’s attention back to the masked vigilante. Hood’s fingers flew as he outlined a plan. Dick nodded, adding a few things of his own, and then Hood slipped away into the shadows. Dick allowed himself a moment to be impressed by the fact that Hood knew military hand signals, then slid out around the corner.

He made his way closer, under cover of crates and barrels until he was barely thirty feet away. He could see Crane, still in his Arkham jumpsuit, exchanging payment with a few rough looking men as others stood nearby with weapons at the ready.

An explosion rocked the far corner of the warehouse.

That was the signal.

Dick leaped out from behind the crates, escrima sticks in hand. He was mere feet away when Crane turned, a sickly smile twisting his face. That’s when Dick saw that all the goons were dawning gas masks. He skidded to a halt but too late. Crane raised a hand and Dick was blasted in the face by a foul smelling yellowish-green gas.

It burned. He stumbled back, eyes watering and unable to breathe. Crane’s sickly smiling face swam in his vision as goons closed in, guns raised. Dick shook his head to try and clear it but a foggy feeling was beginning to cloud behind his eyes. He clutched his batons with hands that trembled. He knew all too well what he had just inhaled.

Suddenly the back wall of the warehouse exploded in a shower of splinters as a familiar armoured car burst into the warehouse. Then hands were grabbing him from behind and yanking him away from the raining debris. Panic flooded his system as he slammed an elbow back. It bounced painfully off something hard. There was a grunt before a vice-like grip closed around his forearm. Dick found himself spun around, coming face to face with red metal. “Hood?” he gasped, blinking tears from his eyes.

“Just me, dumbass. Calm down,” the vigilante grumbled as gunfire cracked loudly behind them. The man paused, seeming to really look Dick over. “You’re not looking so hot, pretty bird,” the man said. His hands were still on Dick’s biceps, hot like branding irons even through layers of leather and kevlar.

Dick sucked in air, feeling a vice tightening around his chest. God, the effects were already beginning to set in. “Fear toxin,” he gasped. The hands on him tightened and suddenly Dick felt like it was the only thing keeping him grounded, seeing him sane.

“Shit,” the other man breathed. “Okay, we gotta get you outta here.”

“But,” Dick stuttered as Hood tugged him under a protective arm and began herding him towards the side door.

“The B Squad has it covered,” Hood snapped, hauling Dick out into the back alley.

Dick wanted to argue but sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead and it was getting difficult to focus. He flinched as a muscled arm wrapped tight around his waist and suddenly they were airborne. Dick could do nothing more than hold on and try not to fowl Hood up. The man was bigger, in height and weight, and seemed to have no trouble keeping Dick in his arms during landings, takeoffs, and the weightless time in between.

By the time they landed one final time, with Hood retracting his grappler with a sharp whiz, Dick was drenched in sweat. It was getting really hard to breathe. “Where are we?” he gasped as Hood half carried, half dragged him into an unfamiliar warehouse-style apartment.

“Safe house,” Hood grunted as he shoved the acrobat unceremoniously on the threadbare couch before rushing off into a side room.

Dick bit back a groan as a shiver shuddered through his body. His hands were shaking and even though he was close to hyperventilating, it felt like he wasn’t getting enough air. God, this felt different. He didn’t remember feeling this overheated the last time he’d been hit by the toxin.

A soft echoing laugh circled around his head like a vulture and he flinched, trying to hold onto reality. He’d been here before. He knew what this was. He just had to hold on a little longer. “It’s not real,” he whispered. “It’s not real.” He practically jumped out of his skin as Hood suddenly appeared at his knee, sans gloves and jacket.

“Hang in there, pretty bird,” the man murmured, drawing out a milky liquid from a small bottle into a narrow syringe.

Dick flinched as hands searched for and then found the clasp in his suit. He felt the zipper being pulled down and that wasn’t right. He began to shake as the tight material begin to peel off his shoulders. He couldn’t be out of the suit. He’d be vulnerable, exposed. They’d take his mask next. People had tried before and when they weren’t able to do it, they’d hurt him. Panic clawed at his throat, like gargling razor blades. His hands scrabbled at the ones attempting to strip him down, the drug making him uncoordinated and sloppy. 

The hands he’d been unsuccessfully pawing at gripped his biceps and gave his a good hard shake. Dick’s head cleared a little, Hood’s masked face snapping into sharp focus. “Hey, focus on me,” the man said firmly. “We need to get your suit off so I can give you the antidote, yeah?” Dick nodded, struggling to hold onto clarity. He let go of Hood’s wrists, let the man peel his suit off until it was bunched up around his hips.

“Okay, pretty bird. Little pinch,” he heard the man murmur before a scratching sensation bit into his inner elbow. 

“ ‘M not pretty,” Dick mumbled, focusing on getting keeping his breathing steady.

Hood snorted rudely as he carefully injected the serum into the acrobat’s vein. “You kiddin’ me?” the man rumbled. “With those cheekbones? You could cut someone with ‘em. ”

Dick made a face and yanked his arm away. Or he tried to. The grip the bigger man hand on his elbow was unshakable and Dick’s muscles were all jelly. “You’re a dick,” he snapped but the words came out all sideways and slurred.

“Takes one to know one,” the vigilante chuckled. “Now relax. The worst is over,” he added, planting a hand to Dick’s bare chest and pushing him back into the couch. Dick nodded and closed his eyes, focusing on his breath. In and out. Slow and easy. In and out. Slow and—

_“Oh bird boy, all grown up.”_

The words whispered against his ear, sickening and slimly. He felt the man’s breath on his neck, heavy and damp. Dick flinched, head whipping towards the sound. Terror punched the air from his lungs but he didn’t see anything beyond a dusty kitchen table and a potted plant that clearly hadn’t been watered in months. A hand touched his his knee and he flinched again.

“What was that? What happened?” Hood snapped, worry bleeding through his voice modulator.

“It’s not working,” Dick whispered as a shiver wracked his body. “Oh god, it’s not working,” he moaned, fisting his hands in his hair. “Shit, it must be a new compound,” Hood growled. “Okay, back to the bats you go. They’ll be able to fix something up for you.”

“No! You can’t take me back,” Dick cried. He grabbed at Hood’s wrists, pulling back against the hands that were trying to lift him off the couch. He vaguely heard a sigh but his vision was starting to tunnel now. All he could hear was his own ragged breathing, the pounding of his heart.

“D-Nightwing, I can’t—,” the man tried to reason but Dick was beyond reason now. A fresh wave of panic crashed over him that had nothing, or everything, to do with the serum.

“No, he can’t—he can’t see me like this,” he begged, words stuttering over themselves. There was no way they could get to the manor in time. Tim couldn’t see him like this, weak and wrecked and screaming at phantoms.“He _can’t_ see me like this. _They_ can’t. Please! Please, you don’t understand. You can’t send me to them. Please. _Pleaseplease_ —.”

“Okay, okay! Jesus, just shut up about it already,” Hood grumbled, pulling himself free from Dick’s desperate grip. He stood there, hands on his hips like he was trying to figure out what to do next. He didn’t leave though, like Dick thought he would. _Feared he would_ , a small distant voice whispered cruelly in his head. He squeezed his eyes shut against that voice but he couldn’t block it out. It continued to talk, lilting through his head like a siren’s song.

 _You know how you’ve been looking at him,_ the voice whispered, silky smooth and poisonous _. Staring at him. Eyes lingering where they shouldn’t. Oh, come on. You can’t deny it._

Dick swallowed painfully, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands. Hands that were currently white knuckling against his knees. He felt sweat rolling down the back of his neck, drying on flushed skin and chilling him like he had a fever. His mind wandered, rolling over muscular shoulders and large biceps and strong thighs and— 

 _Just admit it,_ the voice mocked. _You want him. You don’t even know what he looks like and yet you’d drop to your knees if he so much as looked at you sideways, wouldn’t you? Fucking whore. Do you have any loyalty at all? Do you forget that easily? Or do you just not care what this man tried to do to your family?”_

Dick nearly jumped out of his skin as a weight settled on the couch beside him. His eyes snapped to the vigilante, who had shed another layer and was now down to a tight black t-shirt.

“It’s gonna be a rough ride,” Hood murmured.

“I—I know—I—,” Dick stuttered. “Just…it’s fine. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to stay.” 

Red metal stared back at him expressionlessly. Then slowly, so slowly that Dick almost didn’t believe it was happening, hands reached up to that mask. There was a soft hiss and then Hood slide the mask off his face. A thatch of thick dark hair streaked with a shock of white, a strong jaw, and a red domino mask met Dick’s swimming vision. He tried to focus on it but everything was all blurry and he couldn’t see on the man’s face as a whole.

A large hand settled on the back of his neck, thumb pressed soothingly along the tensely corded muscles. “I’m right here, pretty bird,” Hood soothed, his real voice rich and deep and soothing. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dick nodded jerkily, damp locks of hair falling into his eyes as he tried not to lean into the touch. He figured he was failing but Hood didn’t seem to mind. That gentle pressure massaged up and down his neck soothingly. Dick let out a shaky breath.

He could do this.

He’d be fine.

He just had to focus on his breathing and the grounding touch on the back of his neck.

He’d be fine.

And then the floor dropped out from under him and he was falling.

  
_He was falling._

_He was falling and then they were falling instead and all he could do was watch. He knew this would happen. It’s what happened first, the last time he’d been dosed. He was ready for it, but this wasn’t something anyone could ever really be ready for. He’d seen it once in the flesh and now he watched it again as the ropes frayed and snapped and they fell in slow motion. He bit back the cry that had torn from his throat on that day and just watched._

_He hit the ground with a thump as the man fell through the trap door, down into the bay. He watched as he clawed for the surface with bound hands, bubbles rising from his lips in a silent cry. He watched even as boots kicked into his ribs, his back, his kidneys. He closed his eyes and still saw the man as fists cracked across his face._

_A hand fisted in his hair and he opened his eyes, expecting to see the split-faced visage of the man who had done this but instead it was Bruce, in the suit but cowl down._

_“Dick?” he asked, concerned. Dick whimpered. “Dick, are you okay?” the tall man asked, bending down to his size because he was barely twelve years old again. Dick shook his head, taking a hiccuping breath._

_Bruce hummed, gently lying a hand on his shoulder. Something sinister creeped into Bruce’s eye and the hand tightened painfully on his shoulder. “You always were weak,” he growled softly, fingers digging into Dick’s tiny shoulder. “That man is dead because of you. Do you know how painful drowning is? He died in agony and it’s all your fault!”_

_That wasn’t what happened that day._ _He remembered that day. Bruce had told him it wasn’t his fault. He knew Dick had tried to save that man, that he’d done everything that he could. It wasn’t his fault and Dick knew it wasn’t his fault so this couldn’t be real. He just kept repeating that mantra over and over. It’s not real_.

_It’s not real. It is not real!_

“It’s not real,” he whispered.

“That’s right, pretty bird. It’s not real,” a soothing voice reached his ears.

The hand was still on the back of his neck, squeezing comfortingly. Sweat-soaked hair was being brushed back from his face by a gentle touch. Comforting murmurings washed over him even as his worst nightmares danced before his eyes.

_Bruce’s face transformed into Two-Face, then into Zucco._

_His mother and father._

_Barbara._

_The little girl who’d been killed during a gang shootout._

_The people he couldn’t save._

_Cycles within cycles, each more horrifying than the next._

_Deathstroke held him at gunpoint before shooting each Titan in turn, in a twisted parody of what actually happened that day._ _Then a sharp pain ripped hot through his shoulder and he fell with a cry. It burned, pain radiating down his arm just like it had when he'd been shot by that psychotic clown. He scrabbled at the wound. He had to stop the bleeding. He had to-_

“Easy, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

 _The world tilted. Vertigo hit like a brick and his back pressed up against something solid. A wash of unfounded paranoid fear crashed over him. It felt like he was drowning in it. His vision darkened, then flashed to blinding white before slipping back into darkness._ _It was a roller coaster of panic, a vice around his chest tightening like a snake until he felt his lungs struggle to expand against it._

_He floated in it, this suspended state of never-ending and unfounded fear._

Finally Dick blinked, seeing the apartment for the first time in a long while. His back was pressed up against a warm chest, strong arms wrapped around his chest and holding him close.

“You back with me?” a low voice rumbled, the breath of the words tickling his ear.

“Hood?” Dick slurred, blinking spots and tears from his eyes.

“Welcome back,” the man murmured softly, his chest vibrating against Dick’s back. “How are you feeling?” he asked, loosening the grip on Dick’s wrists. Dick blinked. That hadn’t been so bad.

“I’m—.” _Fine_ , he was going to say but a terrifyingly familiar voice wafted past his ear.

_“Oh, bird boy.”_

Dick tensed, breath hitching in his throat. Hood’s arms tightened around him again as the shadow stood. He was saying something but Dick couldn't focus on the words. His breath was hitching in his chest. It was like trying to breath syrup, or broken glass. His eyes slide across the room to the menacing shadow that suddenly bloom out of the peeling wallpaper. Terror washed over him and he couldn't stop the whimper from slipping past his lips.

“Whatever you’re seeing, it can’t hurt you,” Hood said firmly against the shell of his ear but the shadow’s next words drowned him out again.

_“Oh yes I can,” the shadow sang out, slinking closer. “Look at you, bird boy. All grown up. Not so much fun now. Still,” here he cackled, that laugh cracking like a whip across Dick’s mind. “Better than your replacement, right?” He smiled, painted red lips stretching gruesomely over yellowing teeth._

A cold wash doused Dick like a bucket of ice water. He shivered, tears prickling his eyes and watering his vision. Not this. God, anything but this. He could deal with getting shot, the abuse that the people he cared about had hurled at him, true memories being twisted and made ugly. But this. He couldn’t deal with this.

“No,” he whispered.

_“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” the clown said in a sing song voice, twirling the bloodied crowbar in his hand. “And I bagged myself a Robin!” He swung the weapon in a wide arc, bringing it down on something that cried out in pain._

“No, no, no,” Dick moaned, struggling against the embrace that quickly turned into a vice grip. He thrashed, twisting. He had to get away. He had to get there. He had to help. He had to be there, like he hadn’t been before. Hadn't know until it was too late. Far too late. He hadn’t even been at the funeral.

_“So let’s try to clear this up, okay pumpkin?” The clown cackled and Dick could see him now. The bare feet, the tattered cape, red staining red. The torn domino mask, showing off eyes glazed with pain and yet still so stubborn._

_“Which hurts more. Forehand?”_

_Thwap!_

Dick flinched.

He'd seen the tape.

The tape that was sent weeks after he died, just to torture them all further. He’d watched every blow, heard every cry and now he was reliving it in it’s full glory. It was like he was in the warehouse, standing next to that fucking clown. He just stood there, locked in place, staring down at the bloodied body on the ground.

_“Or backhand?”_

_Thawp!_

Bruce hadn’t wanted Dick to see it. He’d try to shelter him from it but Dick had snuck into the Cave late one night because he had to know. He couldn’t even make it through the whole tape. He’d turned it off at about the halfway mark with a slammed fist to the console. Bruce had been there when he turned, standing stoically at the top of the stairs. Just watching. He didn’t speak a word but his posture said it all. Then he’d just left. He’d turned heel and left Dick alone with his grief and his guilt.

_Thwap!_

_“Wow, that looked like it really hurt.”_

“No! Please, stop,” Dick cried.

 _“A little louder, lamb chop!”_  
  
“Stop it!” he sobbed. “Just stop it, please!”

“It’s not real, Dickiebird,” a gentle voice soothed.

Dick stopped thrashing, laying back against a muscled chest as his own heaved with stuttered sobs. That name. It brought echoes of days now long gone whisking forward through time when everything had been better, he’d been better. A time before everything had changed. He was even inclined to believe it until….

_“Where were you?” a broken angry voice hissed._

“No,” Dick whispered as the nightmare got so much worse.

 _There he was._ _The bright red uniform was shredded, blood splattered across the black and white R emblem. Bare feet stumbled across the cold ground, arms hanging at angles only achievable by bones shattered beyond repair. The black domino mask was torn, one eye swelling shut. When he spoke, blood bubbled out from between broken teeth._

_“You left me,” he sobbed. “You left me alone!”_

“I didn’t know,” Dick whispered, tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry.”

_“That’s it? You’re sorry?” the boy cried. “He killed me and you’re sorry?!”_

“I know, I know. I…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

_“I don’t want your fuckin’ apologies, I wanted you!!” the boy screamed in his face, blood flecking from his lips and flecked across Dick’s cheek. “I needed you! I needed your help, your protection! Where were you?!” Bright fevered eyes rolled wildly, blood dribbling past lips with gouges bitten into them in a futile attempt to stifle cries._

A sob wrenched from his throat, painful and raw.

“Dick, listen to me. It’s not real.”

_“But I was real!” the boy cried. “And you were too late. Now I’m nothing!”_

“I know. I couldn't...I'm sorry.” Dick tried to close his eyes but it didn’t make a difference to the hallucinations. He could still see him dancing against his eyelids.

_"Stop fucking saying you're fucking sorry!" he screamed, eyes hard with pain and brimming with hate._

_The clown leaned in close, so close Dick could feel his sickly breath on his cheek. It smelled like rotting flowers. “Tougher making with the yuks when you’re worm food,” the monster cackled._

“You’re okay. It’s not real,” was murmured beside his ear.

_“Oh, I’m real alright,” the maniac giggled. “And I’m gonna make him bleed!” The crowbar traveled in a downward arch, slamming across the already abused jaw. The boy fell hard, a broken cry spilling from his lips._

_Bloodstained metal slammed down again and again._

_Splintering. Tearing. Shattering._

_“Forehand! Backhand! Forehand! Backhand!”_

“No! Please!”

 _It was his hand gripping the crowbar now. His hand that raised it high and brought it down with a sickly swish before metal met flesh and ripped another anguished cry from clenched teeth trying so hard not to let any sound out._  
  
“No, no, no!”

“Dick, it’s not real!”

_“Forehand! Backhand!”_

“JASON!”

 

  
Dick came awake all at once. His eyes flew open, flailing against the restraints that tangled around his arms and legs. His heart pounded wildly in his chest as he finally managed to throw the blanket off and leap to his feet. His eyes roamed wildly about the unfamiliar space before lasering in on the one familiar sight.

Red Hood was sitting at the small kitchen table, elbows on the table, helmet back in place. To be honest, Dick couldn’t rightly remember if the man had actually taken it off or if that was just part of the hallucinations. He somehow managed to look small, hunched in on himself the weak dawn light. His head tilted towards Dick, red metal glinting as the sun crested between the buildings outside. “You okay?” he asked, voice sounding wrecked even through the distortion.

Dick figured that as much as he’d had a rough night, it probably hadn’t been a picnic for the other man either. He nodded, unsure he trusted his voice yet.

“You need to borrow clothes?” Hood continued.

“I’ll be fine,” Dick murmured, once more surprised by the vigilante’s concern. “Rooftops are faster anyways.”

Hood nodded and seemingly dismissed him in exchange to staring intently at the tabletop. Shakily, Dick pulled his suit back on, wincing as the stiff material pulled at sweat chilled skin. His face felt tacky, eyes gritty and sore. His temples were pounding.

“You remember anything?” Hood asked suddenly.

Dick’s eyes flicked up to the other man. It was unsettling to see a man so large manage to look so small. He seemed rooted to the spot, tension laying thick and heavy across his shoulders. Dick shrugged, swallowing down uneasiness. “Bits. Not much,” he answered shortly, wincing at how ruined his voice sounded. He wasn’t lying. The memories of the hallucinations were jumbled and vague, overlapping in a dizzying mess. He did remember the clown, the way his laugh slide into his ears like oil.

He remembered watching _him_ die.

Over and over and over again.

He also remembered a hand on the back of his neck, a solid grounding touch. He remembered being wrapped up by strong arms, held against a broad chest. He remembered a low rumbling voice murmuring comforting words in his ear the whole night.

He paused at the window, throwing a glance back at the vigilante who still hadn’t moved. “Thanks for…,” he trailed off, unsure how to convey just how grateful he was that the man had not only stayed but made sure he was safe. “You know. Just…thanks,” he settled on, prompting a shrug from those broad shoulders. He waited, but Hood didn’t even glance at him. He was half out of the window before the man spoke, his words freezing Dick in place.

“Who’s Jason?”

“I…,” Dick stumbled, the echoes of the distorted hallucinations slithering under his skin like snakes. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there staring at the back of the metal helmet, one leg over the window sill in a parody of the last time one of them was sneaking out of the other’s window in rough shape. Dick swallowed thickly, a sensation not dissimilar to swallowing glass and kept the answer simple.

“Someone I couldn’t save,” he whispered.

Hood didn’t turn around and Dick fled before he decided to.

 


	4. Those Are The Shrieking Eels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild reference to sexual assault

  
Dick flexed his hands against the ropes that bound his hands to the chair, testing the knots. This honestly wasn’t how he had imagined spending his birthday but then again, he wasn’t that surprised either. He bit his lip in frustration, leaning his head back against the headrest of the strange dentist-like chair they’d shoved him into.

Stupid. Of course it had been a trap.

The canisters were rigged, filled with some sort of knock-out gas. He hadn’t even touched them so it must have been on some sort of timed release. He should have seen it a mile away. If Tim was here, Dick wouldn’t be hearing the end of it. As it was, he wasn’t too worried. They’d used ropes instead of shackles and hadn’t even bothered tying his feet.

Who was stupid now?

He focused back on the man in front of him who had been pontificating for the last ten minutes about how he’d been the one to bring down the infamous Nightwing and what they were gonna do to him now that they had him. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Dick interrupted, much to the ire of his captor. “I stopped listening after _‘You’re going to suffer pain like you’ve never imagined’_. It all gets so repetitive over the years, you know? You guys should really compare notes or someth—!”

The slap wasn’t a surprise. Most bad guys didn’t appreciate his off brand of humour. It was all a tactic though. Distract them with your mouth so they don’t see what your hands are doing. The back of the man’s hand cuffed him across the jaw, the chunky ring on the middle finger tearing into his cheek. “Rude,” he said mildly. He turned back to fix the slimy goon with an unimpressed stare as he scraped his right wrist against a rough bit of metal. It was slowly beginning to wear away at the rope fibres. Hopefully he could get free before whatever fun this man had planned for him started. “And just at the start of such a promising friendship,” he added with a cocky smirk.

The man smiled, something slimy and dangerous in his eyes. He up in Dick's face, close enough that the masked man could smell his breath. Bourbon and pepperoni. “Oh, believe me," the man sneered, clearly confident that Dick was safely restrained. "This is just the beginning of our friendship." Hands suddenly gripped his thighs painfully. Dick fixed a bored look on his face but his heart pounded in his chest as those hands started to slide up his legs.

Never let them see you rattled. Never let them see you scared.

Dick clenched his hands, fingernails biting into his palms as thumbs pressed into the crease at the top of his thighs, dangerously close to his crotch. A hand gripped his jaw roughly, fingers digging into his cheeks.

“Pretty,” the man murmured. Dick felt a cold flush crash over him. “We’re going to have so much fun,” the suit continued with a nasty smirk. “And I promise, by the end of it you’ll be begging m—.” The man’s sick words were drowned out as gunfire ripped through the warehouse, taking down two men before they could even turn.

Dick lashed out, using the distraction to spin the boss man around into a chokehold between his legs. “Weren’t you ever taught consent is sexy?” he snarled at the choking man.

Suddenly a knife whirled through the air, slicing through the ropes and freeing his right hand. Dick wasted no time and stabbed his stun gauntlet up into the man’s ribs. He convulsed, falling to the side. Dick flipped back and off the chair, grabbing the knife out of the metal and cut his other wrist free. He used the chair like a pommel horse, flying through the air to strike feet first into the chest of the closest goon. He spun, taking the legs out from under another as a flash of red streaked through his peripheral.

Before long he stood across from the helmeted vigilante, the floor between them littered with unconscious bodies. “Hood,” Dick nodded stiltedly. If his voice was a little shaky, adrenaline and other emotions swirling in his chest, the vigilante didn’t seem to take notice. “Thanks for the assist but I had it handled.”

Hood snorted as he close the distance between them with languid strides. “Yeah, they always forget how freaky flexible you are,” he muttered. “So what would have been your strategy if I hadn’t shown up, talked them into surrender? Distract them with that pretty mouth of yours until Daddy came running to the rescue?”

Dick’s breath stuttered. He clenched his teeth so hard it made his temples ache but he knew if he didn’t his jaw might tremble and then Hood might see. He wasn’t about to give the vigilante the satisfaction to see how badly he’d been rattled. Sure, he’d been through some shit through the years he’d worn a mask but he’d never been put in that kind of situation before. Nothing happened. Nothing would have happened even if Hood hadn’t shown up but the threat had been there. There had been intent and that was what he was having trouble shaking off.

“What are you doing in Bludhaven?” he snapped, desperate to change the subject.

“Business trip,” Hood said, oblivious of Dick’s internal struggle. He kicked out a heavy boot, landing a blow to the torso of the body at his feet. Dick was happy to see that it was the slimy suit. “This asshole’s been at the forefront of the drug running between Gotham and here for months. Decided to put him outta business.”

“Yes, you’ve certainly started making a name for yourself in Gotham of late,” Dick commented, having heard the trickle of reports that Red Hood was back on the scene, this time with a slightly different agenda. The vigilante had seemed to be targeting other lowlifes in the city, a macabre parody of Batman with a more unfortunate outcome for the bad guys. “Going after low level criminals, stopping crime? That doesn’t really sound like you. What’s the angle?”

“Call it a change in profession,” Hood snarked. “Took inspiration from you bats, just decided to do it better.”

Dick wasn’t about to get into a morality argument over the Bat’s strict No Killing policy, not with this man. It was a war inside himself that he had wrestled with many a time and wasn’t looking to get into a debate about it. Especially not right now.

A soft pinging sound broke the silence.

Both men froze. “Oh you have got to be fucking with me,” Hood groaned as the pinging started sounding faster.

“Move!” Dick snapped and the two men booked it for the stairs. Just as they got to it an explosion rocked the deck beneath them, consuming their escape in an inferno. They skidded and ran back the way that they came.

“Window!” Hood snarled as another explosion blew out the wall on catwalk in front of them. Dick followed behind the bigger man as he smashed a nearby out with his elbow. Together they scrambled like spider monkeys up to peak of the warehouse.

Another explosion rocked the building, almost sending them tumbling off the slanted roof. “Why do the warehouses always have to fucking explode?!” Hood groaned.

Dick ignored him, weighing their options. The rest of the buildings around them were too far away from a grapnel, this particular building jutting out further over the water than the others. The back half of the roof was already in flames and crawling quickly towards them. “We have to jump,” Dick said, peering over the edge of the roof towards the murky black bay below.

“What? No fuckin’ way!” Hood snapped.

“Then stay here and burn to death, because I only see the two options,” Dick snapped, trying to judge just how far out they’d have to jump so they would splatter on the edge of the dock.

“It’s like a two hundred foot drop,” Hood argued. “We won’t make it.”

“Nonsense,” Dick said, turning to the man with a reckless grin as the perfect response came to mind. “You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

“Oh fuck you,” Hood snarled, flipping his middle finger right up under Dick’s nose. The roof rocked under their feet as another explosion tore out the far wall of the building with a roar. Dick felt Hood flinch as support beams fell with a thunderous crash. The far end of the roof had caved in. “There better not be fucking eels,” Hood muttered under his breath before leaping out over the edge into darkness. With a deep breath, Dick flung himself after the man.

The shock of hitting the water felt like what Dick imagined it would be like to be run over by a train, in Siberia, while getting mauled by a grizzly bear. The kevlar made him sink and he had to claw his way to the surface, heaving in huge lungfuls of the sewage-filled air when he finally breached the surface. He watched as the flames engulf the rest of the building. A tremendous crack reverberated across the harbour and the part of the roof they had just been standing on collapsed.

He treaded water, turning in circles but seeing nothing but choppy dark waves. “Hood!” He called out, careful to keep his head above water to not get any of the foul water in his mouth. In the bright flicker of the burning warehouse, he caught sight of a shadowy figure stumbling up the embankment. The man reached up to his face, the metal peeling back to rain sea water out of dark hair. Hood turned, as if feeling Dick’s gaze on him. He flicked a sardonic little salute before disappearing into the shadows, helmet in hand as sirens wailed in the distance.

“Asshole,” Dick muttered as he struck out for shore.

 

 

After a scalding hot shower and a tetanus booster, Dick threw his suit in to wash and collapsed wearily onto his couch. He closed his eyes, raking a hand through his wet hair as he contemplated whether or not he had the energy to make dinner. Or breakfast technically as the horizon was already beginning to lighten. Maybe just cereal.

As he contemplated the merits of eating or just passing out here on the couch, a soft scratch at the window caught his attention. _Aw, hell no_ , he thought, seeing the bulky shape silhouetted against the building across the street. Thank god he hadn’t turned on any lights yet because he didn’t have his mask on. However much he secretly enjoyed Hood’s company in the field, his real identity was so far down the list of things he would trust the man with it wasn’t even on the list.

As it was the apartment was thrown into heavy shadow so as long as he was careful and the other man didn’t try anything, it would be fine. He hauled himself off the couch and stalked into the kitchen, coming up short as he felt the strip of light from the street lamp reaching his collarbones, keeping his face in full shadow. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest as the vigilante slipped the lock on his window with a knife and eased it open.

“You should invest in some better security,” the man snarked, moving to perch on the sill like some sort of demented bird.

Dick blinked as the man’s face was into enough light to see that he wasn’t wearing a helmet. A red domino mask that covered his eyes, lenses white and expressionless. He had a ski mask tucked up over his nose and mouth, looking like a steampunk stagecoach robber. His words were still electronically modulated, so he must have one of those voice distortion collars on. “This is borderline stalking now, Hood,” Dick drawled, shoving down the spike of worry at the fact that this man _kept finding out where he lived_.

“Call it a hobby,” the vigilante smirked. “Besides, I brought you a present. Happy Birthday.”

He tossed a black bag across the kitchen. Dick caught it easily, barely covering the startled flinch. There was no way the man could know it was his actual birthday. He was just being a smart-ass but the coincidence was a bit too much for Dick’s comfort. “Why no helmet?” he asked, feeling the contents of the bag cautiously.

“Sea water’s a bitch,” the man grumbled, shifting his footing on the narrow ledge. “I see you’re all fresh faced. Trust me that much already, pretty bird?” he teased.

_“Pretty,” the man leered as hands tightened on his hips._

Dick flinched. “Don’t,” he snapped, tone bitingly sharp. “Don’t call me that. Not tonight.”

Hood went very still and Dick could have kicked himself. Never let them see you rattled. Too late for that now. He could feel the man’s eyes on him. He busied himself with the bag, reaching in and pulling out a bunch of file folders. “What’s this?” he asked curiously, flipping the top one open to see what looked like shipping manifests and delivery schedules.

“What did he do?” Hood asked.

He asked so calmly, so quietly, but it made Dick flinch again all the same. “Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. He glanced up to see the man staring at him, hand clenched around the window sill so tightly Dick was surprised the sill didn’t dent. “Hood—,” he tried.

 _“What did he do?_ ” the man rode overtop of him.

“Nothing happened,” Dick insisted. He could feel the vigilante’s glare searing him right through. “He was a creep,” he relented reluctantly. “Called me pretty, felt me up. That’s it.”

The silence that followed was defining.

“I’ll kill him,” Hood said softly, his voice so dangerously calm that it sent a chill down Dick’s spine. There was a protective undertone there too that had Dick a little off balance. He seemed to always feel a little off balance around the man.

“Jesus, melodramatic much?” he huffed a forced chuckle. “I think he’s suffered enough.” Bruce had called earlier, saying that two of the goons had been pulled alive from the warehouse by BCPD and had been airlifted to Gotham General suffering extensive third degree burns. The suit was one of them.

“Not good enough,” Hood muttered darkly, fingers flexing dangerously.

Dick swallowed, throat feeling dry. “You gonna explain this or are you gonna continue your misplaced defence of my honour?” he asked, forcing an even tone as he held up the stack of files. He could see Hood’s jaw muscles flexing even under the ski mask. Silence stretched across the kitchen. Dick felt a shiver crawl up his spine, a cold wind slipping in from the open window.

“I leave for Gotham in the morning,” Hood finally said. “Figured you could use them more than me.”

Dick’s eyes snapped up to meet Hood’s covered ones. All the bite was gone from his tone now. If anything it sounded sincere.“Why? Why help me?” Dick couldn’t help but ask. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” Hood replied swiftly. “You could have easily left me on the roof that night but you didn’t. Things would probably be a lot simpler for you if you had.”

Dick gaped, huffing an affronted breath. “Well excuse me for not being a complete asshole,” he retorted.

Hood laughed, but not in the way Dick expected him to. It wasn’t the harsh bark that he’d heard before. The sound reminded Dick of some big jungle cat purring. That analogy was so very absurd and yet fit so perfectly. It was a quiet rumble from deep in his chest, almost shy-sounding. Dick pushed down the warm, fuzzy feeling that fizzed in his stomach and pushed for an actual answer. He needed to know. “I’m serious,” he insisted. “Less than a year ago you wanted to kill me and now you’re giving me tips and intel and watching my back? What changed?”

Hood tensed so fast Dick was surprised the man didn’t fall right off the window ledge. Once again, silence stretched between them. The air was taut with tension like a wire ready to snap. Dick could have kicked himself.

Sure, confront the dangerous vigilante while he’s in your apartment and you’re in pyjamas with no weapons and no mask. Brilliant, Grayson. Truly brilliant. Your ability to put yourself in dangerous scenarios like this is genius and surpassed by none while—

“I never wanted to kill you,” Hood said.

He breathed it like a confession, soft and low. Almost like the words themselves were sacred.

Dick froze, hardly daring to breathe unless he broke the spell and he had the other man flying for his throat or diving out the window without revealing anymore information.

“I could never—,” Hood started and then choked himself off, words screeching to a halt on his lips.

Even in the low light Dick could see the way his fingers clenched around the window frame, how his throat bobbed against the black fabric covering his neck and jaw. The man stared across the space at Dick and he wished that he could only see his eyes, see what was going on behind the masks both literal and figurative.

“Never you,” he breathed.

Dick opened his mouth, to say what he didn’t know. Questions buzzed in his head like wasps but nothing seemed to make it to his tongue. Before he could get a word in the bigger man let go of the sill and launched himself backwards out the window. Dick sucked in a shaky breath, realizing with a start that the files in his hands were getting crunched he was clenching them so tight.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone whose read, left kudos, and taken the time to write comments! The outpouring of support and love for this fic is incredible and far beyond anything I was expecting when I posted the first chapter! xx


	5. We Are Men Of Action

Dick bent backwards to avoid the man’s wild swing, pushed up as he was against the railing of the catwalks. Suddenly, hands were around his throat. Weight bared down on him, choking off his air and digging the railing painfully into his lower back. He tried every trick he knew but the man on top of him had him off balance, his toes barely scraping the deck.

He was starting to run out of air. Spots danced before his eyes. In a last ditch attempt he heaved himself back over the railing, taking the man with him. His right hand gripped the railing as he flipped, while the other latched onto his attacker’s wrist. He was unable to bite off the grunt of pain at the impact that reverberated across his shoulders as he swung from one hand. He felt something pull too far in his left shoulder, the heavy goon dangling over four stories of open air.

“Nightwing, hold on!” Tim’s voice snapped through his comms.

“Wasn’t planning on letting go but thanks for the tip,” Dick grunted, renewing his drip on the slippery railing. Below he could hear the sounds of the fight, saw the flash of red and green out the corner of his eye two levels down. “Please, take your time,” he grumbled. “I could do this all day. No really, I’m actually enjoying this. Nothing like a good stretch before bed.”

“Drop the sarcasm, Nightwing,” Bruce’s gravelly voice snapped in his ear.

Dick rolled his eyes. All business all the time with that man.

“Oh I don’t know,” a familiar distorted voice chuckled through the comms. “I think it’s rather charming.”

Dick froze, as much as he could while hanging off a catwalk by one arm. He heard Tim curse in his ear, saw Bruce freeze down on the ground floor, hand snapping up to his ear where the comm was secured in his cowl. Dick hadn’t seen the vigilante in months, not since the warehouse explosion in Bludhaven and now the man’s voice was growling in his ear. This was supposed to be a secure channel. How the hell was the man coming through their comms?

“Hood?” he breathed.

A sing-song whistle reached his ears, this time not coming from the coms. He glanced up, seeing Red Hood lounging against the railing above him, red helmet glinting in the low light and had the man gotten bigger in the past few months? He looked it, with that signature leather jacket stretched tight across broad shoulders. He waggled his fingers in Dick’s direction.

“What’s a nice bird like you doin’ in a place like this?” he drawled, placing his boot dangerously close to where Dick’s fingers were gripping onto the rung.

“Oh you know, just hanging out,” Dick replied with a grin, feeling his stomach flip-flop in a way that had zero place given the current situation.

“Hood, you stay away from him!” Bruce roared, his voice echoing from down below.

The vigilante just chuckled.

“Well?” Dick huffed in annoyance. “You gonna pull us up or you just gonna sit there and stare?” He winced, feeling something stretch too far in his rotator cuff.

“Naw,” Hood said, tapping the barrel of the gun that was suddenly in his hand against the railing menacingly. “How about we play a game instead? Eenie.” His arm snapped out sharply, the little metal sight of the Glock lining up directly between Dick’s eyes.

Dick’s breath caught in his chest.

“Meenie,” Hood continued, shifting the gun slightly to the right to aim just past Dick’s shoulder.

He could hear Tim’s panicked voice in his ear, heard Bruce as he mowed his way through armed men to get to where Dick was hanging completely vulnerable. He knew why they were scared, borderline panicking because they were too far away to save him. Dick was scared too, but not for the same reasons.

“Miney,” Hood said, the gun shifting back to Dick.

“Don’t,” he breathed.

“Mo,” Hood whispered.

The crack of the gun reverberated through the air like a thunderclap. Dick’s ears were left ringing and he felt the air displaced as the bullet whizzed past his ear, missing him by inches.

“Nightwing!” Tim shrieked, clearly thinking the vigilante had just shot him.

“No!” Bruce roared.

Dick felt the man go limp in his grip, fingers slipping free from around his gauntleted wrist.

A batarang whizzed through the air, ricocheted off Hood’s helmet with a spark. Dick's head whipped around from the impact and he stumbled back. Then Tim was there and Dick had to focus on the deadweight that was threatening to pull him from the railing. His hand was starting to slip, the muscles in his shoulders stretched to their limit.

“Let go.”

This time it wasn’t Hood’s distorted voice in his ear. “What? No!” Dick cried.

“Nightwing, you have to let go,” Bruce insisted in that steady tone that had always calmed him as Robin.

“No, I can hold him! I can do it!” Dick insisted, watching helplessly as Tim ducked a roundhouse kick from Red Hood, the blow brushing his hair it came so close.

“Nightwing, he’s already dead.”

Dick froze. The fight continued around him as if in slow motion. Slowly, he looked down. The man hung limp from his hand, a blood-red blossom dripping from between his collarbones. He would have died instantly.

“There’s nothing more you can do,” Bruce said, voice surprisingly gentle. “Let go.”

Dick swallowed thickly, jaw muscles twitching as he ground his teeth together.

Then he let go.

He didn’t watch as the man’s body crashed to the ground but he heard it all the same as he latched onto the railing with his other hand. The sickening thud, the soft crunch of bones breaking. He pushed it from his mind as he pulled himself up with a grunt. He slipped nimbly through the railings and rolled to a knee, escrima sticks unfurling with an sizzle.

Hood glanced at him and whatever he saw on Dick’s face had him slamming a brutal kick to Tim’s chest and then leaping out the closest window. Dick didn’t even hesitate. He barely felt the glass shards slice across his cheeks and scratch off his kevlar as he followed after the vigilante.

“Nightwing, break off your pursuit,” Bruce growled in his ear but he ignored it as he slide down the slanted lower roof of the building. “Do not engage, you hear me? Do not engage!”

Dick leapt off the edge of the roof, landing on the roof below with a smooth tuck and roll. He was on his feet and running within a breath. A shadow dropped off the far end of the roof, swinging up and across the street by a grappling line.

“Nightwing!” Bruce’s voice thundered in his ear.

With a snarl, he deactivated his comms and with it his GPS tracker. He’d get hell for that later but right now, he didn’t care. He leapt off the roof in a free fall, firing his grapnel with practised ease to swing up and over onto the next building.

The chase continued over the rooftops for half of Gotham but finally he caught up with the masked man. He flung a wing-ding across the space, nailing Red Hood in the leg. The man went down, hand clutching the back of his thigh. Nightwing continued his momentum, slamming a knee up into the man’s masked face. The blow whipped the vigilante’s head back. Dick spun on his heels, leg arching up and around in a dizzying display of flexibility to crack a kick across the man’s face. One final blow caught Hood square in the chest, sending him sprawling back across the roof.

“Why?” he snarled, white-knuckling his escrima sticks.

“You know who that man was?” Hood growled as he sat up on his elbows. “What his crimes were? You wanna know what he did?”

Dick shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he stated.

“It always matters!” Hood spat as he got his knees underneath himself.

“He still deserved a fair trial and—,” Dick tried but the masked man wasn’t having it.

“He raped a thirteen year old girl!” the vigilante roared. “After he killed her parents in a gang hit right in front of her!” Cold washed over Dick, clawing up his throat as he swallowed back down bile. “Is that the kind of trash you want walking free?” Hood continued nastily as he got to his feet.

“It’s not our place to play judge, jury, and executioner,” Dick said flatly, echoing something Bruce had told him when he first gave him the mantle of Robin.

“Don’t you fucking quote the Bat to me,” Hood snarled.

The venom in his voice physically made Dick take a step back. The bigger man stalked around him like a predator, muscles lean and graceful. Dick countered with him, not letting the man get behind him for a second. “So what now, Bat-bitch?” the nam sneered, holding his his arms wide. “You gonna take me back to Daddy? Gonna ground me? Lock me up like the bad boy I am?”  

“You’re psychotic,” Dick breathed.

Hood cackled, a harsh unhinged sound that set Dick’s nerves on edge. “Ah, but you’re the one who followed me here without backup or comms,” he snarled before he was suddenly in motion. 

Dick didn’t have time to do more than blink before Hood’s heavy combat boot smashed across his face in a devastating roundhouse kick. It was closely followed by the other boot colliding with his chest, throwing him back. He rolled, coming up onto his knee, to find the barrel of a gun nestled between his eyebrows.

Hood tisked condescendingly, waggling a finger in front of his face. “You never learn, do you, pretty bird?” he drawled, pressing the cold gunmetal against Dick’s forehead. “Once again, you bring a stick to a gun fight.”

“How many times are we gonna do this dance?” Dick asked quietly. He kept his voice even but his lungs was in his throat and he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears because he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Hood _wouldn’t_ just kill him. Sure, he’d had plenty of opportunity to off him in the past. He’d even confessed after their last encounters that he’d never wanted to kill Dick but right now there was a terrifying menace radiating from the man. The man's hand didn’t waver from where it wrapped around the grip of the gun, the sight never wavering as it pressed an indent into Dick’s skin.

So he decided not to take the chance. Dick moved lightening fast, wrenching the gun from the man’s grip with a sharp twist. With a flurry of blows and a harsh crack of electricity, he sent the vigilante once again sprawling back across the roof. “And besides, I brought two sticks,” Dick couldn’t help but add, twirling his escrima sticks jauntily. Hood chuckled, rolling over to his side, a hand pressed to his chest where Dick’s kick had landed. 

“Always have to be the smart ass, huh Golden Boy,” he sneered.

Dick froze, something cold and heavy blooming in his chest. It wrapped around his ribs and squeezed, making it hard to breathe. It clawed up into his throat and lodged there, refusing to clear even as he swallowed. He hadn’t heard that nickname in a very long time. It was a name that came heavily stained with blood and grief and guilt.

A voice, higher pitched and brimming with excitable energy, slipped through time and memory to echo through Dick's mind.

_“Come on, Golden Boy! Is that the best you’ve got?”_

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

He’d looked, searched for so long. He’d refused to believe Bruce when he insisted that he couldn’t be alive, that he was gone. Dick hadn’t believed it until he’d seen the tape. He could barely watch it once but Alfred had told him Bruce had spent weeks going over it, trying to discover any clues to it being a hoax, trying to find proof and he hadn’t found anything. It hadn’t been faked. There was no way it could have been.

So Dick had accepted that. He'd mourned, had grieved the loss bitterly. He'd hated himself, guilt settling into his bones like a cancer. It was the only time he'd ever gotten drunk. And as time past, the wound had scabbed over and he'd learned to live with the loss. He didn't move on but he learned to live with it and over the years the pain dulled. And now this ghost had risen from the past to rip that wound wide open again.

“What did you call me?" he breathed.

Hood froze, halfway to his feet in an awkward hunched position. Slowly, the bigger man got to his feet. “You gettin’ picky about your nicknames now?” the man scoffed but his voice wasn’t even. Not even close.

“No,” Dick whispered, only years of training keeping him from dropping his batons from fingers now gone numb. “No, you can’t be.” The words sounded certain but he said it like he was questioning his own statement. He was questioning everything; all the months spent dancing around the hooded man, the last five years, that awful night. 

“You’re not makin’ any sense, birdbrain,” the other man snapped, just a little too sharply.

Dick’s breath caught audibly in his throat, a stuttering gasp that sounded far too loud on the quiet rooftop. Hood twitched at the sound, hands clenching into fists as the stalemate wore on. Dick broke it first, taking a step forward. He only got that single step in before the other man was running. He’d leapt off the edge of the roof before Dick could do anything more but blink.

It took Dick hours to find him.

By the time he did, the horizon was beginning to brighten. He found the man perched in the shadows on the top of the old Gothic church on the outskirts of the downtown core. He was sitting on a flying buttress hundreds of stories above the streets, legs swinging out over open air like a child sitting in a chair that was too big. Dick leapt easily over the guard rail, landing on the narrow ledge that led to the other man’s perch. He kept a safe distance, close but not close enough to touch or make the other man feel threatened.

“Persistent, aren’t you?” the masked man said, the voice modulator rasping his words. “Someone might assume the wrong intention here, pretty bird. You sure you’re not the one whose the stalker in this dynamic?”

“Jason,” Dick breathed.

The man’s legs stilled. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” came the soft reply.

Dick bit back the knee-jerk response. _Liar,_ his heart screamed but he had to keep a clear head. He shifted his weight, stepping out over onto the buttress next to the masked man. He made a show of finding a comfortable seat as he stalled for time, scrambling for the right thing to say. He looked out across the city, watching as the glass windows on the newer office buildings began to sparkle in the red and yellow light. And then it can to him, just as the sun started cresting the horizon.

“We are men of action,” he said softly. “Lies do not become us.”

The larger man sat so still he might have been some strange gargoyle carved into the side of the building. Then slowly, ever so slowly, his reached his hands up to his face. The soft snick of the catch releasing could be heard over the growing hum of the early morning commuters. Slowly, the man drew the red metal over his head, setting the mask aside on a ornate stone protrudent. Dick’s chest constricted painfully as the bigger man turned to face him.

That red domino mask Dick vaguely remembered from when he was under the influence of the fear toxin hid the man’s eyes. Everything else was heavily shadowed but Dick knew it was him. Older yes, but it was him. Dick shuffled closer, perching precariously on the small ledge between buttresses. His fingers twitched, wanting to reach out; to touch and make sure the ghost in front of him was real.

“God, Little Wing, I—,” he tried.

Jason flinched away even though Dick wasn’t reaching for him. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped before he snatched up his helmet and vaulted back onto the roof. Dick followed close on his heels.

“Jason, wait—!” His words were cut off again, this time with a helmet to the face as Jason whipped it around in a vicious backhand. The blow took Dick’s feet out from under him and he hit the ground hard. The breath knocked from his lungs and then Jason was on him. A heavy weight settled across his hips. A backhanded blow cracked across his face, striking his cheekbone and whipping his head to the side. He tried to sit up but a palm strike between the eyes flattened him again.

This was the first time Dick really registered how much bigger Jason was than him now. He wasn’t just taller but broader, thicker in the chest and shoulders. While Dick kept his body lean and flexible due to his gymnastics background, the other man had clearly been focusing more on power and mass. That didn’t stop him from being scary fast though. Dick’s wrists were enveloped in a steel grip before he could even blink, one hand easily holding both of his.

“Come on, pretty bird.” Jason crowed nastily. “You can do better than that!”

The hand not wrapped around Dick’s wrists slapped him, open palm like an insult. The sound of leather on flesh cracked across the roof like a whip. “Is that all you’ve got, Goldie? Come on, fight back,” Jason snarled. The nickname, hurled with such venom, hurt more than the blow that cracked across his jaw. His teeth clacked together and he tasted iron but he kept himself lax in the other man’s grip.

“Fight back!” the former Robin roared.

“I’m not gonna fight you, Jason,” Dick whispered.

The younger man froze, hand raised in preparation for another blow. The expression around his domino looked wild and more than a little unhinged. Jason’s grip tightened and Dick winced as the bones of his wrists ground together painfully. The younger man’s chest heaved as they sat frozen.

“It’s okay,” Dick whispered. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You’re alive! Everything else is gonna be okay. Bruce will be so—.”

At the mention of the man’s name, Jason flinched so hard his entire body rocked. “He knows,” he murmured. 

“What?” Dick breathed, unable to properly process those two simple words.

“He knows and he doesn’t care,” Jason stated, voice flat and emotionless. Something had locked down across his face, a mask sliding into place. “Jason,” Dick tried but the man was beyond hearing. Dick's wrists were released as the weight disappeared from his hips.

“Jason, wait!” he called out, sitting up to see the man once again stalking away from him.

“Don’t follow me,” the younger man snapped, not even bothering to turn around before leaping off the edge of the roof.

 

  
_“You knew,”_ Dick hissed as he strode into the Cave, rage bubbling through his veins like a poison.

“You disobeyed my direct order and you disengaged your comms,” Bruce said in that calm, stony tone that used to make Dick feel about six inches tall. Now it just enraged him further. The man didn’t even bother turning around, sitting at the large display screen as Tim perched nearby. “That was reckless and impulsive, Dick, even for you,” Bruce continued. “Red Hood is dangerous and he’s—.”

“Jason!” Dick roared.

Bruce froze, hands hovering over the keyboard. Tim frowned, glancing between the two of them in confusion. “What does Jason have to do with this?” the boy asked, brow furrowed.

“Tim, go help Alfred with breakfast,” Bruce said.

“But—."

“ _Now,”_ Bruce ordered, in a tone that brokered no argument. Tim clearly wasn’t happy but diligently hopped down from his perch and stalked up the stairs to the mansion. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t discuss this around him,” Bruce said.

Dick scoffed, striding across the cave towards the man who still hadn’t given him the common curtesy of turning around. “He’s Jason,” Dick snarled. “Red Hood is Jason. And you knew.”

The next word out of the man’s mouth cut him to the core.

“Yes,” Bruce said.

“How could you?” Dick breathed, closing the gap between them. “You've known for months. For months! And you what, just kept it to yourself? Kept it from Alfred, and Tim, and Barbara? For _me?!_ This entire time, we thought he was dead and this _entire time_ you’ve been hiding him from us. Goddamnit Bruce, _look at me!”_ he cried, grabbing the man’s shoulder and spinning him around.

Whatever other words he’d had planned died on his tongue. Bruce looked wrecked. Deep circles bruised under hectic eyes and his shoulders were hunched in on himself. He’d never seen the man look so defeated. 

“I made a lot of mistakes with Jason,” Bruce said softly.

Dick suddenly felt like his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore and he sat down heavily in a nearby chair. Dick’s hands clenched and he crossed his arms over his chest to hid the shaking.

“He was always so angry,” the man continued. “And I met his temper with ultimatums. I tried to force him into a mould that he wasn’t meant to fit. I pushed and he pushed back and one day I pushed to hard. I made a mistake. And because of that mistake, I lost him.” Here Bruce, paused. When he continued, his voice was once again steady and detached sounding. "But he’s not the same, Dick. Coming back…twisted him. He isn’t Jason anymore.”

“I don’t believe that,” Dick whispered. “I _can’t_ believe that.”

“Dick,” Bruce sighed.

“No, Bruce,” Dick snapped, interrupted the older man. “We failed him once, but we can make it right. We have to make this right.”

And just like that an invisible mask slid over Bruce's face, effectively hiding any flicker of grief or weakness that had been there before. “He’s dangerous, Dick,” he said sternly.

“He won’t hurt me,” Dick replied stubbornly.

“Your face tells a different story,” the older man said sharply, causing Dick’s resolve to falter. “Or were you just going to tell me you slipped in the shower?” Dick had nothing he could say to that so he just turned and walked out of the cave. Bruce didn’t try and stop him. He never did.

“Will you be staying for breakfast, Master Dick?” Alfred said primly as Dick snatched up his motorcycle helmet from the hall table.

“Not today, Alfred, sorry,” the acrobat replied briskly.

“Just…,” the elderly butler paused. Dick pulled up short. He’d never heard the man hesitate before, not in his nearly two decades of knowing the man. The Englishman looked as stoic as ever but there was a sadness in his eyes. “Be gentle with him,” the man asked. Dick didn’t even bother to hold back the scoff.

“Bruce doesn’t need kid gloves, what he needs is to have that self righteous stick removed from his—.”

“While I’m sure that was going to be a perfectly colourful analogy,” the man interrupted smoothly. “I was not speaking of Master Bruce.” Dick blinked. The butler looked on impassively, never giving anything away with his expression as usual.

“You knew too,” Dick stated flatly.

“I had my suspicions,” Alfred amended. “What transpired here today merely confirmed them.”

“He lied. He kept this to himself for months." 

“Master Bruce has never seen clearly when it came to Master Jason,” Alfred said slowly. “Losing him like that….he never fully recovered. I don’t believe he ever will. Now that is not an excuse,” he said swiftly, holding up a gnarled hand to dispel Dick’s heated retort. “It is simply a fact.”

“He thinks Jason’s broken,” Dick stuttered, feeling his eyes start to burn with the tears he’d been holding back for hours. “He thinks he came back…wrong.”

“Anyone who has suffered as he has is bound to be a little broken."

He said it gently but Dick flinched all the same. He stared down at his boots, a few stray locks falling across his eyes. “But,” Alfred added. Dick glanced up sharply through his bangs as the butler gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “That just means it’s up to us to put him back together.”

Dick sniffed harshly, resisting the urge to rub his nose on his sleeve in the Englishman’s presence. “You always know what to say, Alf,” he said, voice only a little unsteady. Alfred chuckled a little, patting his arm.

“You are too kind, Master Dick,” he said gently before his smile tightened around the edges. “You bring him home,” he said softly.

Dick swallowed thickly, placing his hand atop the the older man’s.

“I will,” he said fervently. “I promise.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah the build up to this! So much fun to write. Thank you again for all the amazing comments!! The outpouring of support is, as always, super flattering and just hypes me up to keep writing more.


	6. Only Mostly Dead

  
Dick’s phone buzzed as he unlocked his apartment door, dripping wet from the rain that hadn’t let up in hours. His jaw clenched as he saw Bruce’s name glaring up at him in blocky white letters from the screen. He swiped his thumb across the screen, sending the man to voicemail once again. He wasn’t in the mood for Bruce’s righteousness bullshit. Not tonight, not for the last two months.

Two months.

That’s how long he’d been searching every nook and cranny in Gotham. He’d followed every lead he could find of but nothing lead to anything useful. He’d set up surveillance the one safe house he knew of but it burnt down a day later. Every sighting of the Red Hood on police scanners led to nothing but the bodies of the criminals who had been unlucky enough to cross the vigilante’s path. The kills were brutal, aimed to cause as much suffering as possible before the unescapable result. It made Dick sick to his stomach to think that the scrawny kid who was afraid of needles could have done something like this.

His phone rang again as he shrugged off his jacket and scrubbed a dishtowel through his hair. He ignored it again, instead flicking on the stovetop light and waiting for the ringing to stop. He’d spent the entire day and most of the night chasing ghosts and dead bodies across the city and all he wanted to do was fall asleep so he could just forget. Maybe some of Kori’s soothing tea would help.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and the rain started falling harder as Dick set about filling the kettle with water. Damn spring storms. Dick’s phone rang again. He slammed the kettle down on the stove with a sharp crash and snatched up the offending item. “Bruce, I swear to god, if you don’t leave me alone I will shove your cowl down your fucking throat,” he snarled into the phone, exhaustion and frazzled nerves making his tongue loose and his judgement clouded.

“Are you finished?” a voice drawled, way to high pitched to be Bruce.

Dick closed his eyes. “Shit, sorry Babs,” he said, chagrinned.

“You know there’s caller ID for a reason, Grayson,” the woman teased. Dick let out a shaky breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache start to set in.

“You doing okay?” Barbara asked, concern colouring her words.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he dismissed.

“Just fine?” came the shrewd reply.

Dick huffed, hoisting himself back and up to perch on the countertop. “Yeah, all fine. What’s up?”

“Well, imagine my surprise when I heard through the grapevine that you’ve been back in Gotham for a couple months. Dick, I haven’t seen you since Christmas. What gives?”

Dick bit his lip with a wince. He should have known this was coming. She always knew everything. It was honestly surprising he hadn't gotten this call sooner. “I’ve been busy,” he replied weakly, eyes roaming across the shadowy kitchen and out the window. A flash of lightening cracked across the windows, illuminating a bulky shadow sitting hunched over on the fire escape.

“Okay, but how hard is a phone call or—."

“Sorry Babs, I have to go,” he said quickly before ending the call. He’d catch hell for that later but right now he had something more important.

Jason didn’t move as Dick slide the window up. He sat with his back pressed against the brick wall next to the window, completely unprotected from the rain as it poured down in thick sheets. His face was hidden in shadow but there was just enough light to tell that he wasn’t wearing his helmet. He had his knees tucked against his chest like a child and it hurt Dick’s heart to see such a big man look so small.

“How long have you been out here?” he asked quietly, leaning casually against the wall. Jason just shrugged, large shoulders jerking with a stuttered coordination that lacked any trace of his usual grace.

“Couple hours,” was the reply.

“Jesus, Jason, you’re gonna—.”

“What, catch my death?” the former Robin snarked, voice rasping harshly. “Been there, done that,”

Dick flinched as Jason chuckled bitterly, leaning his head back against the rough brick. “Will you at least come inside?” he asked softly, half expecting the man to say no.

The silence grew, broken only by the rain and the rumble of thunder as the storm began to move closer. Then Jason rolled over onto his knees, coming up practically nose to nose with Dick. A flash of light illuminated his face and Dick realized with a start that the man wasn’t wearing his domino. The rain slithered down his bare face in a cruel parody of tears as he stared at Dick with storm blue eyes. The lightening passed and the former Robin fell into shadow once again.

“You gonna move or what?” he murmured.

Dick blinked and hurriedly stepped aside as Jason eased his bulk through the window.

In the dim light of his tiny kitchen, Dick finally got a good look at the man. The years had turned the stubborn jawline strong but it was the same high cheekbones and the same full lips. The dark hair, soaked through and dripping, now had a streak of white extending back from just above his temple. His body glided when he moved, muscles rippling lazily like a large cat.

Everything about him radiated a deadly grace, all predatory and so very dangerous. The eyes were the same, and yet so very different. Jason’s eyes had always been hard, tempered by growing up in the roughest parts of Gotham. Now the grey-blue colour looked otherworldly, haunted with things that Dick couldn’t begin to imagine or understand.

“How?” he whispered.

His voice was barely about a breath like he was worried he’d break some sort of spell and Jason would vanish like some sort of mirage. The younger man’s eyes snapped sharply to his before quickly looking away. His eyes flicked from the table to the stove to the wall, looking at anything but Dick. Then he shrugged. “I remember staring down a timer in an abandoned warehouse unable to feel my arms or legs,” he said stiffly. “Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a box. Seven by two and six feet under.”

Dick’s stomach dropped into the vicinity of his feet while his lungs decided to crawl up into his throat.

“Jesus,” he choked out.

“Naw, he wasn’t there,” Jason sneered nastily before something vulnerable flickered across his face. “No one was."

Jason's eyes suddenly snapped up, catching Dick staring. Whatever emotions that had bled through vanished in a blink. Something hard flooded into his eyes and suddenly he was wearing a mask again, regardless that he didn’t have his domino or helmet. He turned his back on Dick and stalked across to the other side of the kitchen. “Don’t really know what happened after that. The next year is all a haze,” he said stiffly.

“A year?” Dick choked but Jason ignored him.

“Couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel,” he continued. “Don’t really feel anything anymore. Only exception was when I clawed my way out of the Pit.”

“The pit?” Dick breathed.

“Christ Dickie, you wanna know what happened or you wanna keep interrupting?” Jason snapped harshly.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Jason huffed a shaky breath. “I don’t know how but Talia found me. She told me later that whatever brought me back missed a few parts. My body came back but,” he paused, twirling a finger in a circle by his temple. “Upstairs was empty.” Tension lay thick across the younger man’s shoulders, practically making the air around him vibrate. “She took me to the Lazarus Pit,” he said, eyes glazing over like he was staring at something very far away.

Dick swallowed, or tried to. His mouth had gone dry. He’d heard the stories, heard the whispers of the things the Pit did to people. The way it twisted them up inside while healing them on the outside. The way it drove some insane.

“What happened?” Dick asked carefully.

 _“What happened?”_ Jason echoed mockingly. He whipped back around to face the acrobat as thunder rumbled threateningly overhead. “What do you think happened, Dickiebird? This happened!” he snarled, thumping a clenched fist against his armoured chest.

“Five years,” he breathed. “Even if you don’t remember the first, that still leaves four years, Jason. I mean, where were you? Why didn’t you come home?”

Jason sneered, his lips twisting bitterly. “Didn’t think I’d be welcome,” he said harshly.

Dick gapped at him, mind unable to properly process what the younger man had just said. “How could you think that?” he gasped, closing the distance with another step. “How could you _ever_ think that? Jason, we didn’t just forget you.”

A harsh pained bark of a laugh cut off whatever else he was going to say. “Oh, bullshit,” Jason snarled, lightening backlighting him with a harsh flash. “Bruce had me replaced before my body was even cold.”

“ _Bruce_ didn’t sleep for months,” Dick insisted sharply. “He looked at every angle, trying to find any flaw, any clue to tell us that it was all a hoax and that you were still alive. He spent hours going over that tape inch by inch, searching for—”

“What tape?” Jason interrupted, brow furrowing.

Dick froze, realizing what he had just let slip. His mouth open and closed but no sound came out. He’d fucked up. He’d just royally fucked up and he couldn’t fix it.

“Dick, _what tape?”_ the younger man demanded, fear underlying the angry tone.

Dick didn’t dare lie. “He sent us a tape,” he whispered. “About a week after you…” He couldn’t say it. Not out loud, not with the man standing in front of him staring down at him with shatter glass eyes. The silence pounded against Dick’s ears as he watched realization slowly bloomed across Jason’s face. It was gut-wrenching to watch. It seemed to be happening in slow motion, like the universe was playing a dirty trick on the both of them in order to prolong the pain.

The fruit bowl shattered against the wall with a sharp crash, sending glass shards raining down on the back of Dick’s head like hail. The agonized cry that accompanied it shook Dick to the core. It clawed at his chest, ripping the air from his lungs. It sounded like a dying animal. It was a sound torn from somewhere deep inside, painful and raw. He’d never heard a human being make such a sound.

The two men stood in the deafening silence that followed, broken only by the rain pounding against the windows as the wind began whipping it sideways. Dick didn’t know what to do. Jason was standing in front of him, chest heaving as his whole body trembled. His eyes were wild and unhinged. In the dark kitchen they almost seemed to be glowing. They blazed with anger. No, not anger.

Rage.

Unfiltered, unadulterated, unchecked rage. Dick had never seen that kind of rage before, dark and ugly and all consuming. And underneath it all the rage lay a bone-shattering fear that had no place living in those teal blue eyes.

“Little Wing,” Dick breathed.

The next thing he knew there was a hand around his throat and he was pinned against the wall. Jason’s face was inches from his, twisted by anger and a deep rooted pain.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” the man hissed, fingers digging painfully into Dick’s windpipe.

“Jason,” he choked.

“Jason’s dead!” the younger man roared, spit flecking across Dick’s face. “He died in that warehouse, scared and in pain and alone!”

Dick swallowed, feeling the man’s fingers pressing into his throat. Jason had always used his anger as a shield, as a way to keep the world from hurting him further. Dick had always seen right through the act and he saw through it now. Maybe not everything had changed. So he didn’t fight back, even as his instincts screamed at him to do just that.

He reached slowly out his hand. Jason flinched back, teeth bared and eyes wary but Dick didn’t let it deter him. He let his fingertips brush through the white swatch of hair on Jason’s temple, featherlight and so very gentle. 

“Only mostly dead,” he whispered. 

Jason’s breath stuttered in his chest. He let go of Dick as if burned, stumbling back a few steps. He swiped the back of his wrist under his nose, hand trembling. His eyes were wild, lips parted as his breath shuddered and hitched.

Then he just crumpled.

Dick barely managed to catch him before the man’s knees cracked against the cold tile. Jason was a dead weight against his arms and god, was he heavy. As gently as he could, Dick lowered the both of them to the floor. The younger man ended up half across his lap, hands latching onto the front of his shirt in a desperate grip.

Gently, Dick got Jason’s head tucked against his shoulder and then he wrapped his arms around the shaking man. Jason’s entire body heaved with silent sobs, tears soaking through the collar of Dick’s shirt. Dick said nothing and just held him, struggling to hold back tears of his own.

Slowly, Jason’s breathing wore out into soft stuttering sniffs. The heaving shoulders reduced to a fine tremor that raced through his body like a frightened racehorse. Carefully, with a feather-light touch, Dick brushed a few damp locks back from Jason’s forehead. “I’m right here,” he murmured, trying to figure out what comforting things he could say without coming off as patronizing. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Jason shoved away from him, turning away as a red flush crawled up the back of his neck. “Shouldn’t make promises you don’t mean to keep,” he muttered darkly.

Dick closed his eyes against the burn that sparked there. There was something so resigned in the man's tone that had Dick wishing he could tear the Joker into a million pieces only to shove him into the Lazarus Pit just so he could do it again. No one deserved what Jason had been through. Especially not someone who'd already had life hand them the short end of the stick from the beginning. It just wasn't fair. Dick had learned early on that life was anything but fair. That still didn't make it any easier to deal with.

“What do you need?” he murmured carefully.

Jason just shook his head.

A single tear escaping the corner of his eye and rolling down his cheek is only to be swiped quickly away. Dick's fingers twitched, wishing he could offer comfort but knowing that any sort of touch wouldn’t be accepted.

“Then stay with me until you figure it out."

 Jason’s whole body tensed. His breath hissed harshly out through his nose as the flight side of the equation kicked into overdrive. Dick swallowed thickly, just barely stopping himself from grabbing Jason’s jacket.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, Little Wing.”

The nickname pulled a harsh flinch across Jason’s cheek. “That’s not a good idea,” he murmured, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face.

Slowly Dick reached across the short space separating them and looped his finger through one of Jason’s leather clad ones. He could feel the man’s hand shaking against his and he squeezed it encouragingly. “I want you to stay,” Dick replied gently.

Jason’s jaw muscles trembled as his teeth nervously worried at the split in his bottom lip. Blood beaded there as he reopened the narrow wound. Dick could practically feel the tug-of-war within the younger man.

Then, as thunder rolled softly across the sky, Dick felt that finger squeeze back, just a little.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a tough one to write and to get right. It's a shorty but hopefully it packs enough of an emotional punch. As always, thanks for the amazing support and encouraging comments. I'm really loving writing this story and I'm glad you're all enjoying reading it


	7. I Do Not Envy You

 

Dick woke groggily, blinking owlishly. A quick glance at his phone read eight twenty in the morning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so late. It probably had something to do with being up till four. A headache had settled in, a testimony to not enough sleep. At least his back wasn’t aching from a night on the couch. He’d tried to get Jason to take the bed but the younger man had refused.

“I sleep maybe a couple hours a night now. I don’t need the fucking bed,” he had grumbled, shoving Dick towards the bedroom.

Dick pulled on a shirt before wandering into the living room. He kept his steps soft in case Jason was asleep but he needn’t have bothered. All he found was an empty apartment and a neat pile of blankets stacked on the corner of the couch. Worry hit first, disappointment following close on its heels. Before he could wallow too far into it however, the door clicked open. “So sleeping beauty finally awakes,” Jason snarked as he kicked the door closed behind him, arms full of grocery bags.

“You went shopping,” Dick stated incredulously.

Jason snorted rudely, dropping the bags on the kitchen counter. “Dick, the only things you have in your fridge are hot sauce and spoiled milk,” he said as he pulled out eggs and bacon and something else green and tubular-shaped. “Seriously, that shit was a few days away from turning into cheese or else growing eyes, becoming sentient, and strangling you in your sleep. Where do you keep your pans?”

“Uhhh, under the stove?” Dick said intelligently, scratching a hand through his already sleep tousled hair. He wandered into the kitchen as Jason started pulling out bowls and pans and turning on the oven. “What are you doing?” The younger man shot him an look that was just so Jason it made Dick’s chest ache with nostalgia. It was equal parts unimpressed and annoyed, with a pinch of amusement.

“Go back to sleep, Dick.”

“I’m fine,” Dick retorted but the effect was ruined as a yawn interrupted the words.

“Case in point,” Jason said dryly as he cracked eggs into a large bowl.

Dick leaned on the kitchen island and watched the younger man putter around the kitchen, pulling various spices and packages from the bags like a domestic Santa Claus. It was nice. It was homey, something that seemed so out of place given their lives and situations but somehow felt so right. Jason had been the only one of the Robins that Alfred even allowed in the kitchen, let alone actually help. He was always there whenever Dick came back to visit, which wasn’t often.

He still remembered the day he found Alfred teaching the young boy how to make pasta from scratch. The look of concentration on Jason’s face as he carefully mixed the flour and eggs together by hand because Alfred insisted it tasted better than when done with a mixer. And the man had been right. Dinner that night had been delicious. The boy had brushed off the comments with a shrug and an snarky comment, but Dick saw the way his tips of his ears had burned pink at the praise.

Jason broke the spell first, with a glance over his shoulder and an eye roll. “Seriously,” he huffed. “You’re falling asleep standing up.”

Dick opened his mouth to say that he would be fine if he could just get a cup of coffee but the attempt was ruined by another yawn. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open, finding himself leaning more and more heavily against the kitchen island. As a compromise, he threw himself down on the couch, fully intending to just relax and watch the bigger man pull together whatever masterpiece he was creating.

He didn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow.

 

Dick woke to a fantastic smell and Jason shrugging leather on over kevlar. His domino was in hand, the red helmet sitting ominously by the front door. “Where are you going?” Dick asked, sitting up with a yawn.

“Out,” was the cryptic answer. “Something came up I gotta deal with. Food’s in the oven.”

Dick came awake all at once. He leapt to his feet as his brain scrambled awake. “Wait, Jason please,” he called out. The bigger man was already at the door, combing his shaggy hair back from his forehead. Dick extended his hand to intercept Jason as the younger man reached for his helmet. “Look, I’m just worried and—,” he tried, fingertips brushing leather.

Jason yanked his hand away from his searching fingers. Cold guarded eyes snapped up to meet his.

“You wanna play house, fine, but this is how it’s gonna work,” Jason growled. “I have shit to do and you start interfering and we’re gonna start having problems. So keep your mother hen-ing to yourself and stay out of my way.”

The door slammed hard, rattling the few pictures on the walls.

He wanted to believe that wasn’t true. He wanted to trust Jason but he also wasn’t naive. There was an edge to the man that hadn’t been there before. All the soft edges had been burned away, hardened. What had been anger before was now transformed into a dark rage. The sarcastic humour had gained a cruel bite. Lopsided smiles were now mocking smirks, the soft breathy laughs had turned bitter and humourless. An unpredictability hovered around the man like an aura, a slightly unhinged light in his eye giving the impression that he could snap at any moment. Bruce’s warning kept nagging in the back of his mind.

_“Coming back…twisted him. He isn’t Jason anymore.”_

 

 

  
Dick parked his bike around the back, in the idyllic little courtyard behind the kitchen that was in sharp contrast to the rest of the gloomy foreboding manor. Here the ground was covered with light coloured gravel that crunched under his tires. Large planter boxes filled with herbs were laid out in symmetrical perfection. A tool shed sat to one side, adjacent to the absolutely massive greenhouse that ran along the far wall.

A wave of heat folded around him like a damp embrace as Dick slipped through the glass door. He shrugged off his leather jacket, draping it over a nearby wheelbarrow as he wandered further into the jungle.

Little paths lined with neat grey stone wound their way around planter boxes, under hanging baskets, and through arbours laced with vines and greenery. Gentle music wafted from speakers hidden in the rafters and as Dick wandered further into the greenhouse, the soft trickle of the water features could be heard.

He found Alfred by a table of orchids, spray bottle in hand as he gently misted the blossoming plants. “Master Dick,” the elderly man said without even turning around. It used to drive Dick crazy as a child, the way the butler always knew when he was in a room no matter how quietly he’d tried to sneak up. “To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?” the man asked as he moved onto the last flower.

Dick couldn’t come up with an answer. What could he say? How would he even start?

‘Jason is back from the dead and sleeping on my couch and I’m not entirely sure he isn’t going to snap and murder me and I’m a completely horrible person for even thinking that because he’s been through hell but I don’t know how to help him and I don’t know what to do and what if Bruce was right and I end up ruining everything and I just don’t know what to do!’

Dick’s lack of answer prompted the Englishman to turn. Dick tried not to fidget under the appraising once-over he was currently getting. It was a Bat family trait, that piercing gaze that seemed to be able to look right through to the core of you. Bruce definitely had it and Dick always theorized that he’d learned it from Alfred.

“How about a cup of tea, hmm? Perhaps a biscuit or two?” the butler suggested, setting the spray bottle down. Dick tensed, crossing his arms over his chest uneasily. “Master Bruce is out of town at a work function,” he added, correctly deducing the cause of Dick’s hesitation. “He isn’t expected back until Monday at the earliest.”

“Tea sounds great,” he replied softly.

 

Alfred refilled Dick’s mug for the second time, chatting quietly about nonsensical things. It was just like Alfred not to ask what was going on and to let Dick be the one to broach it. And so far, Dick had been stalling. “Shall I put on the kettle again, Master Dick?” Alfred asked as he set the now empty teapot aside. Dick shook his head, hands clutched around his mug stiffly.

“I just…,” he started before immediately trailing off again. Alfred said nothing, perched across from him at the counter as patient as ever. “I don’t think I know who he is anymore,” Dick finally said.

Alfred nodded thoughtfully. “Then you’ll simply have to get to know him again ,” the butler said, so easily like he was commenting on the weather.

“It’s not that simple, Alf,” he said softly.

“I never said it was,” the Englishman replied primly. “Nothing about either of your lives has ever been simple. You both came into this house from tragedy.” The man said it gently but Dick couldn’t help the flinch that flicked across his face. “But you, Master Dick,” he insisted, catching and holding the younger man’s gaze. “You never let it best you. That kind of bravery is rare.”

“I don’t feel particularly brave,” Dick muttered.

“The truly brave never do,” came Alfred’s immediate reply. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear,” the older man quoted.

Dick huffed a breathy chuckle, remembering all the homework done in this very kitchen with Alfred sitting in the exact same place. It felt like a lifetime ago now. “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear,” he murmured.

“Exactly so,” Alfred nodded, a small smile playing on his lips.

They sat quietly for a while. Alfred didn’t rush him. He simply sipped his tea and waited for Dick to sort his head out. "What if...what if Bruce was right?" he asked softly, hating the idea but unable to ignore the possibility. Alfred set his teacup down with exaggerated care. 

"Has something happened?" he asked quietly. 

"I just...he's so angry all the time and I don’t know how to help,” he replied, fingernails picking at the flower painted porcelain.

Alfred took a thoughtful breath. “Master Jason has always been adept at hiding his feelings,” the butler said slowly. “Anger was always easy for him and he used that anger to keep the world at arms length, to keep it from hurting him further.”

“I know that,” he huffed impatiently.

“Ah, but not to it’s full extent, I’d think,” the man corrected. “He idolized you, you know.” There was something sad in Alfred’s gaze, filled with echoes of the past. “He wanted to be just like you,” Alfred continued. “As much as he wanted approval from Bruce, he craved it from you even more. Disappointing you, I think was one of his greatest fears.”

Dick swallowed, hands white-knuckling the mug in front of him. “So what do I do?” he asked quietly.

“Be there for him.”

“You make it sound so easy,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Sometimes the easiest solutions are the hardest,” the elder man replied as he refilled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove. “Be patient, Master Dick. He’ll come to you when he’s ready.”

 

  
The apartment was empty when Dick returned but he wasn’t really expecting anything else. He swapped jeans for yoga pants, poured a bowl of cereal, and curled up in front of the tv. He was through his second bowl and well into an original Star Trek marathon when the door behind him opened. He listened to the soft snick of the locks being thrown, the light clink of metal being set down on wood, the gentle swoosh of leather pulling across kevlar.

“You really should invest in better security,” Jason drawled as he threw himself down on the other side of the couch, down to a tight black t-shirt but still in the kevlar enforced pants. “Either that or move to a better neighbourhood,” he snarked, kicking his boots up on the coffee table with a thunk.

Dick shrugged. “I don’t really spend a lot of time in Gotham anymore,” he said around a mouthful of cereal. He felt Jason’s eyes snap over to him. He could feel the man’s glare seeing into the side of his head.

“Then why?” the younger man asked sharply.

Dick felt like this conversation was gonna start spiralling and quickly. He set his bowl down on the coffee table carefully and muted the television. “I don’t understand the question,” Dick said slowly, crossing his legs underneath himself.

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have a job in ‘haven?” the bigger man demanded, eyes hard and accusing. “What possible reason do you have for wasting your time in this shit heap of a town? And don’t say me because I’ll kick your fucking teeth in.”

“Okay,” Dick replied.

It was clear that Jason was waiting for an elaboration. It took Jason a moment to really process what Dick’s one-word answer meant and when he finally did, his whole face darkened. “Jesus christ, Dickie,” he growled, throwing himself up off the couch.

“Is it so impossible that I might just care about y—.”

“Don’t fucking finish that sentence. I don’t give a shit and I don’t wanna hear it,” he spat, his entire body practically vibrating he was getting so angry. Like an wounded animal trapped in a snare, Jason lashed out when he was in pain. He used his anger as a mask to cover the fact that he was just scared. Exactly what he was so scared of, Dick could only guess.

“Well, why are _you_ still here?” Dick countered, in what he considered to be a reasonable tone in the face the younger man’s anger. “I mean you could go anywhere you want so what’s keeping you here? Because I know it’s not Bruce and it clearly isn’t me so what?”

Jason went very quiet and a sudden thought struck him with no small resemblance to being hit by a freight train. “Is it me?” he breathed. A hot flush raced up the back of his neck when the young man didn’t say anything, just shifted his weight uneasily. “Jason,” he murmured.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the man snapped hoarsely.

“Then what?”

Jason just shook his head sharply. His hair, wanton for a cut, fell across his eyes. His fingers twitched with nervous energy, his tendency to run from difficult questions beginning to take over. Dick wanted to keep pressing but Alfred’s advice trickled through his mind.

_He’ll come to you when he’s ready._

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” Jason spat.

Dick heaved a long and slow breath. It didn’t seem to matter what he did or what he said, Jason just got angry. As much as he wanted to snap back, getting angry in turn wasn’t going to help the situation. “Just sit down Jay,” he sighed. He felt Jason tense at the order but Dick ignored him. instead he turned up the volume and focused on Spock as he read out some technical space jargon to a clearly uninterested Kirk. He treated the younger man not unlike a skittish animal. The same rules seemed to apply.

_No sudden movements. Be patient. Let them come to you._

It took longer than Dick would have liked but less than he really expected before the couch dipped beside him with a sudden added weight. He ignored the younger man, pretending to focus on the Enterprise’s crew as they fought of this week’s baddy. He scooped the last of the sugary goodness floating in the now discoloured milk before pouring himself more. He shook the box in Jason’s direction, eyes never wavering from the TV.

“Help yourself,” he offered.

“You can’t eat cereal for dinner,” Jason scoffed with an unfiltered look of disgust.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he crowed. He childishly took a massive spoonful and chewed obscenely loud. He yelped as milk suddenly slopped into his lap as Jason yanked the bowl from his hands. “Hey, what the hell?!” he protested, scrambling after Jason as he marched into the kitchen. “Aw Jay, don’t,” he whined, watching helplessly as the younger man dumped the offending food down the garbage disposal.

“Your eating habits are appalling,” Jason grumbled as he grabbed eggs and milk from the fridge and other ingredients Dick never remembered buying. Clearly because he hadn’t as he never bought groceries. His diet consisted of cereal, coffee, and take-out. Any shopping lists consisted of the first two.

“It’s not that bad,” he protested.

“You need to take better care of yourself, Dickie,” Jason scolded as he measured flour and cracked eggs for a recipe he clearly knew from memory.

Dick scratched a nervous hand through his hair, suddenly uncomfortable at having himself called out like that. He’d had others comment. Alfred was always on his case about how he ate. Kori and Roy used to nag him constantly about the same, even though Roy really was no better, the hypocrite. Now having Jason was just hammering home the exact same argument. “What are you making?” he asked, trying to stere the conversation back to safer ground.

“Oh, now you’re interested?” Jason said sharply.

Dick shrugged, a mischievous smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, it’d be silly to turn down free food,” he mused, watching the other man mix what was now looking like batter with a practised ease.

“I used your credit card for the groceries, dickhead,” he snarked back, those shoulders finally beginning to come down.

Dick spluttered and protested vehemently because that was the game but a relieved grin threatened to ruin the outraged facade the entire time. This was nice, the teasing, the camaraderie. This was easy and if it took a little longer to get through all the walls that Jason had built up around him, than so be it. He was willing to put in the time.

 

It turned out Jason was making pancakes. Blueberry, to be precise. “Fuck, these are good,” Dick practically moaned as they sat next to each other at the island. Jason just shrugged. He was merely picking at his, something that didn’t go unnoticed. “You’re not hungry?” he asked.

“Don’t start mother hen-ing me, Grayson. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”

Dick just grinned and in a freakish show of flexibility, wrapped his leg around Jason’s shoulders. “No, I have two,” he said through a mouthful of pancake.

“Fuckin’ freak,” Jason muttered, shrugging off the limb. The unfortunate unforeseen effect of that was Dick being thrown off balance. The flimsy stool tipped dangerously backwards. He flailed his arms in an attempt to counter balance himself and would have tipped right over if it hadn’t been for Jason’s quick reflexes. He grabbing the back of the stool and yanked him forward again. “Christ, how have you survived this long on your own?” he grumbled.

“A finely honed set of skills,” Dick teased.

“Try dumb luck,” the younger man snorted rudely.

“That too,” Dick grinned, popping another piece of the blueberry goodness into his mouth. “Seriously though, you’re like a gangster Martha Stewart,” he continued, licking syrup from his fingers.

“It’s just pancakes, Dick.”

“Yeah but they’re like really good pancakes,” he insisted. “Tim says I’m so bad I could probably burn water.”

As soon as he said it he realized his mistake. Jason’s lip curled at the mere mention of the boy’s name. “Yeah, I’m sure my replacement says a lotta things,” he sneered, stabbing his fork viciously into his pancake.

“Don’t…don’t call him that,” Dick said quietly. “It’s not his fault.”

“Yeah well, I don’t blame him, now do I?” Jason growled, shoving himself back from the island.

“Jason,” he sighed

“What the fuck do you want from me?” the younger man demanded.

Dick let out a slow breath, forcing his fingers to relax from where they had been white-knuckling the butterknife. “Nothing,” he said softly.

“Bullshit,” came the immediate snarled response.

“Jay,” he sighed. 

“Don’t lie to me."

“I’m not!"

“BullSHIT!”

A sharp crack reverberated across the kitchen. Dick flinched, eyes snapping to the shards of broken plate that were now scattered under the man’s clenched fist, bits of pancake and syrup splattered about.

Silence echoed loudly between them.

Blood began to well from between Jason’s fingers. Dick stared down at that hand, at the pale crisscross scars that were scattered across the fingers, up over the arm before disappearing under the short sleeve shirt. A thick rope of scar tissue wrapped around the side of his neck, still pink around the edges in its newness. More split his eyebrows, across his his lip and the bridge of his nose.

Dick knew there had to be more hidden under clothes. He could only imagine. Newer wounds now recently healed lying alongside deep gouges that could only be from one thing. And those eyes. Dark and stormy like the sea, hiding a scared broken kid underneath layers of rage and pain.

A bitter taste bubbled up from his throat like oil, sliding over his tongue as he stared down at the blood stained concrete under a torn and broken body. The memories of the tape mingled with the kaleidoscope memories of the fear toxin hallucinations. He dragged his eyes up to Jason’s face and for a moment he didn’t see the man, whose face was twisted and dark with anger. He saw the kid, eyes wary but bright and so full of life.

The boy who never got to grow up.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “God, Little Wing, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want your fucking pity,” Jason snarled.

“No, it’s not…I…,” Dick stumbled, words catching on the back of his teeth. Everything was bubbling up to the surface now and he couldn’t seem to make it stop no matter how much he tried. _“Iignoredyourcall,”_ he gasped in a rush, the words tumbling over each other in their hurry to get out of his mouth.

“What?” Jason demanded.

“I got your call, before everything happened, but I ignored it,” he breathed, forcing himself to slow down. “I wasn’t there and I should have been. I failed you and I’m….I’m so sorry.”

Five years worth of guilt had spilled from his lips in four simple words. He’d been on the way out the door, rushing to rendezvous with the Titans for a mission off-world. His phone had been right by the door, left behind because he certainly wouldn’t get cell service in space. It had rang when he’d had one hand on the door handle. He'd seen the caller ID but he was in a hurry.

He should have answered the phone. He knew the kid was struggling. Bruce had taken Robin away from him, saying he was too impulsive and out of control. Too angry. Too violent. And what did the kid have if he didn’t have that domino? Dick knew exactly what that felt like and had promised himself that he would call Jason back as soon as he got home but by then it had been too late. He had been too late.

“You weren’t there.”

The words sliced through Dick’s chest like shards of ice. “I know,” he said, the word sliding off his lips like a sob. His eyes were burning, vision going wobbly as he struggled to hold onto some semblance of control. “And I should have been. I should have been _better_. I —.”

“Shut up!” Jason hissed.

Dick swallowed sharply, thorns prickling the whole way down his throat.

“Dick, you weren’t even on the fucking planet.”

“Not good enough,” he whispered.

A hand cupped under his chin, forcing his head up.

Sky-blue eyes met storm-blue.

“You didn’t know,” Jason insisted, holding Dick’s eyes with such an intensity that the older man didn’t dare look away. “So you need to stop blaming yourself because... because I don’t.” Dick lungs forgot their job the moment those three words left Jason's lips. There was something so forceful in Jason’s words, like if he said it sternly enough it would be true. Then Jason was rocking back on his heels, putting space between them again. Dick licked his lips as he swallowed, tasting iron. 

“You’re bleeding,” he whispered.

“It’s fine,” Jason muttered, looking everywhere but him.

“No, it’s not. Lemme see,” Dick demanded, scrubbing a hand across his watery eyes. He shoved his churning emotions down and locking them away as only a former bat could. Physical injuries trumped emotional. The latter could be dealt with, or ignored which was the more likely outcome, once one of them wasn’t bleeding all over the kitchen tiles.

Finally, and very reluctantly, Jason relented. “You’ll need stitches,” Dick stated, looking over the multiple lacerations that peppered the side of the man’s hand, many of which still had plate shards imbedded in them.

He sat Jason down on the toilet, perching next to him on the edge of the tub with the first aid kit laying open at his feet. It took a while. Dick worked painstakingly carefully to remove all the remnants of the plate. Shards of bloody porcelain accumulated on the towel beside him. The entire time Jason didn’t make a sound, even as Dick threaded the needle through his skin.

“There,” he murmured as he carefully tied off the last stitch and set about bandaging the man’s hand. He’d barely finished taping it before Jason was up and stalking out of the room. Dick stifled a sigh, something sharp scratching deep inside his chest. He cleaned up the bathroom and packed the kit away before heading back into the kitchen.

He found Jason in the kitchen, picking porcelain off the floor. A wad of bloody paper towels were piled nearby. “Here, let me,” he offered but Jason flinched away from him.

“I got it, it’s fine.”

“I’m just trying to help,” he murmured.

“I know,” the younger man snapped. Then something inside him crumpled. His legs folded underneath him as he sat down heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose as he took a deep breath. “I know,” Jason muttered, letting his hands fall limply into his lap. “But you can’t fix everything, Dickie.”

 _You can’t fix me_ , went unsaid but not unheard.

They needed to talk. This wasn’t something that would get better on its own, Dick knew that. But not tonight.

Tonight, Dick moved to sit beside the bigger man. Slowly, to give Jason enough time to move away, he shuffled over until their shoulders were brushing. He didn’t say a word because he knew there was nothing he could say to make this better. When Jason didn’t reject the touch, he reached across and wrapped his hand gently around the younger man’s bicep. He considered it a win when his hand wasn’t immediately slapped away.

In increments, he felt Jason relax. Inch by inch, the tension bled from those broad shoulders. Jason huffed a long exhale, his body finally settling under Dick’s touch. It didn’t fix anything. Not even close.

But maybe it was a start.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Idle_Worship for the formatting tips! In regards to whether this is a Red Hood vs Arkham Knight storyline, I've based it off of the Red Hood version where Jason does actually die and is reborn by the Lazarus Pit. In regards to the tape, that was a plot device I added to give Dick a firsthand account of what Jason went through. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! Glad you are all enjoying it still!


	8. I'll Try And Stay Awake

Considering that Dick had left Jason parked on his couch in sweatpants with reruns of The Office playing on the television, it was a big surprise to come face to face with Red Hood in some underground catacombs under the old Gotham bank. The two men had only a chance to blink at each other before the Bad Guy of The Weeks goons were on them again. “Fancy seeing you here,” he called out as he backhanded a guy across the jaw with his baton.

“Oh you know,” Jason replied, slamming a heavy boot into the side of a man’s knee. The joint went sideways with a sickly crack and the man dropped with a shrill shriek. “Got bored. Borrowed a police scanner. Thought I’d have some fun.”

Dick just shook his head as he caught a man’s knife swing in a crossguard. His idea of fun was very different from the younger man’s. “Borrowed means you had the intention of giving it back,” he grunted, shoving the man to the side.

“Semantics,” Jason growled as he smashed his attacker’s face into the brick wall, once, twice.

“Take it easy!” Dick snapped.

“He’ll live,” Jason snapped as he let the man drop.

“Hey,” he called out, catching the bigger man by the bicep as he moved to head down the tunnels. “That’s not how we do things,” he said sternly. Jason’s mouth twisted to bite back a retort but the floor suddenly dropped out from underneath them and they were falling.

Dick barely had time to register the sensation before he slammed into the ground. Jason’s bulk crashed into his back, shoving him face first into the damp earth. He pushed the bigger man off, spitting dirt as something clanged shut above them. Everything plunged to black.

“Well shit,” Dick huffed as he got to his feet. “Since when did these small times robbery rings get so tricky?” He reached out, fingers brushing against smooth stone. “Feels like an old well but that doesn’t make sense,” he mused as he continued to trace his way around the curved room. “Unless the bank was built on top of something. Ruins, perhaps?”

Just as he realized that he hadn’t heard anything from Jason in a while, he almost tripped over him. He seemed to be sitting on the ground, back against the wall. “Just relax. Take a load off. Don’t feel like you need to help or anything,” he muttered as he stepped over the younger man and continued feeling along the wall.

He got no response to the dig, which was weird because Jason’s middle name was Snarky Comeback. “You okay over there?” he asked, worried that maybe Jason had been injured when he fell. That worry tripled as he didn’t get a response.

“Talk to me, Hood,” he said, feeling his way back towards where he’d tripped over the vigilante. His leg brushed against something solid. There wasn’t much light but now that his eyes were starting to adjust, what what little leaked through the grate above them was enough to see the rough outline of the bigger man. “Hey,” he murmured, sliding his hands up to the man’s broad shoulders only to find them trembling.

“Okay, easy,” he murmured, hearing Jason’s breaths coming out in uneven pants. “Let’s get this helmet off, yeah? Where the release?” He felt Jason’s hands shaking as they reached up and flicked the catch with a soft click. He helped the younger man pull the metal off over his head. He set the helmet to the side, keeping one hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Talk to me,” he murmured. “What’s going on?”

He felt Jason shake his head, trembling hands reaching up to fist themselves in his hair. He knew they didn’t have a lot of time. It wouldn’t be long before the gang members began to wake up or reinforcements arrived, but Jason was on the fast track to either becoming catatonic or falling into a full blow panic attack and Dick couldn’t get the two of them out on his own.

“I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Dick said reasonably. Jason’s breath heaved like a sob, hands tightening in his hair as he shook his head sharply. “Ok, doing this in the dark is stupid,” Dick grumbled, drawing a couple glow sticks and cracking them across his knee. The small room bloomed with pale green light as the chemicals mixed with each other.

Jason’s reaction was immediate and violent. A broken whimper tore from his throat as he scrambled away from Dick in a panic. “No, no, no, I can’t go back. Don’t make me go back,” he sobbed, flattening himself against wall.

Dick swallowed down his own rising panic, catching himself feeding off of the other man’s distress. “Okay, just take a breath,” Dick soothed, slowly moving towards the trembling man.

“Put it out, put it out,” he heard Jason whispering.

“What?” Dick breathed, not understanding. He took another step and Jason flinched so violently his head smacked against the stone.

“Put it out!” he shrieked.

Dick’s eyes widened as it clicked. The glow sticks. “Shit.” Immediately he dropped them, hurriedly kicking dirt over them. The small room was plunged back into darkness. “It’s okay, they’re out.”

Carefully, Dick shuffled his way towards Jason’s stuttered breath. He felt his way along the ground until his fingers brushed against Jason’s leg. He slide his other hand up until it was on Jason’s shoulder and squeezed encouragingly. “I need you to tell me what’s wrong,” he urged.

“Green,” Jason finally whispered.

“Green. Okay. Green is bad?” Dick guessed and felt Jason nod in answer. “Okay. No green. Ah, is blue okay?” He wouldn’t get into why green was such a bad colour right now but they needed light. He felt Jason nod again.

A moment later and everything was illuminated by a cool light. “Okay, there we go,” Dick breathed, setting the lights by their feet and taking the younger man in. Jason was sitting with his back pressed up against the wall, forehead pressed against his knees with his arms wrapped around his shins.

“Where’s your head at, Little Wing?” Dick asked, squeezing Jason’s shoulder. No answer. Desperation thrummed as he started to hear faint rustlings from up through the grate. He tugged gently on Jason’s hair, prompting the younger man into raising his head up. Dick’s heart lurched as he saw the tear tracks that had scored tracks in the dirt down the man’s cheeks.

“I need you here,” he said firmly, feeling Jason’s breath stutter. “I can’t get us out on my own. You can fall apart later and I will be right there with you but right now, I need you to pull it together.”

It took a long moment but then Jason take a long slow breath. Dick felt the younger man pull away and he let him. He rocked back on his heels as Jason got to his feet and stalked to the other side of the room.

Now illuminated by the glow sticks was a small grate at the bottom of the wall. A heavy boot striking one of the hinges had the whole thing falling with a muffled thump. “Tunnel leads to an old sewage shaft. It opens up just behind the south wall,” Jason rasped, tension lying thick across his shoulders. Dick stepped up beside him, eyeing the narrow entrance. “I won’t fit,” Jason said stiffly, confirming Dick’s suspicions.

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Dick said as he bent towards the grate. A hand wrapped around his bicep and yanked him up roughly.

“You better be right back,” he growled.

“I won’t leave you, I promise,” he said firmly. He could practically feel the gears whirring in the other man’s head, deciding whether or not to trust. He didn’t say anything but he let go of Dick’s arm, so the older man figured that was as much as he was going to get.

Crawling through grungy old sewer tunnels was not on the top ten list of things Dick enjoyed doing but he made good time navigating maze. Before long the few gang members who had regained consciousness were in cuffs and he was dropping a line down to Jason. He helped the bigger man out through the grate.

Jason’s legs buckled as soon as he was out of the hole in the ground, his knees hitting the stone ground hard as his entire body trembled. “You okay?” Dick asked alarmed. He laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder, feeling the man heaving huge gasping lungfuls of air.

Jason’s head snapped up as if on a line as one of the gang members stirred with a groan. Dick barely had time to blink before the younger man was on the semi-conscious man. By the time Dick managed to drag the vigilante off, the gang member’s face was an unrecognizable mess.

“Stop, J—Hood, stop!” he cried as he wrestled the bigger man back. Jason threw him off with a snarl as sirens wailed in the distance, muted through layers of stone and concrete. “We have to go,” Dick snapped, grabbing a hold of the man’s massive bicep. Jason shook him off again before striding away down the tunnel, leaving Dick alone to scramble after him.

 

Jason didn’t say a word as they made there way back to the apartment. Once there, he simply stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door. Dick could hear the shower running. He waited for a bit but the shower kept running. He washed the best he could in the kitchen sink and changed into more comfortable clothes. The shower was still running once he had finished so he made himself a cup of tea and sat down on the couch to wait Jason out.

Finally the shower turned off but still Jason didn’t make an appearance. After another half an hour, Dick couldn’t just sit there any longer. “Jay, you okay in there?” he asked, knocking lightly at the bathroom door. No answer. “Jay?” he asked again. Once again, silence was the only reply. Now Dick was getting really worried. “I’m coming in,” he cautioned as he turned the handle and pushed the door open slowly.

Steam still hung heavy, the air heavily perfumed with Dick’s preferred body wash. He spotted the dark hair first, contrasting starkly with the broken white tiled walls. Jason was sitting on the floor of the shower, face buried in his hands with his elbows resting on his knees. What he could see of the man’s back had been scrubbed raw, the normally pale skin turned a splotchy red. He had to forcibly wrench his eyes from the multitude of scars that criss-crossed every inch of visible skin.

“Jay?” Dick murmured as he knelt by the tub’s edge.

Jason didn’t move, didn’t give any indication that he’d heard him. Dick sat crouched there long enough his knee started to ache against the hard floor. Finally, Jason spoke, words muttered quietly.

“The Pit was green,” was all he said.

Dick hummed softly. At least now he understood the reaction. He just didn’t know what to do to make it better. Jason’s shoulders heaved as he took a shaky breath. He scrubbed his hands down his face, cupping them over his nose and mouth. “I can still smell it,” he said, words muffled through his hands.

“Smell what?” Dick asked gently.

“The dirt,” he whispered.

Dick frowned, not understanding. Then it hit him. They’d buried him. Jason died and they’d buried him and then he came back. The younger man’s confession echoed back through his mind: _“Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a box. Seven by two and six feet under.”_ Dick swallowed as the contents of his stomach threatened to crawl into his throat.

Jesus christ, they’d _buried him._

This…this was almost too much. Jason had always carried baggage from his childhood. It had coloured almost everything in his life as Robin. The pain manifested into anger and that anger was used as both shield and sword to keep the world at bay. Then he’d died and that in itself is enough to permanently screw with anyones head.

But to be buried alive. To die staring down a clock as it ticked to zero and then to wake up in a box under six feet of dirt. Oxygen running out and the pressure, the claustrophobia, the panic. Dick couldn’t even imagine what that would do to a person and that’s not even taking into consideration what the Pit did to Jason as well.

He swallowed again, forcing down all those swirling emotions because he couldn’t afford to break down right now. They couldn’t both fall apart at the same time.“Come on, Little Wing,” he murmured, tugging a towel off the rack and wrapping it around Jason’s shoulders.

He got the younger man dried and dressed before sitting him down on the couch with a mug of fragrant herbal tea in his hands. The man didn’t even protest the treatment and that in itself was enough of an indication of how out of it Jason was.

Dick showered quickly, scrubbing thoroughly to remove any lingering traces of dirt before getting dressed in fresh clothes. He found Jason right where he left him, clutching the mug of tea under his nose like it was the only thing keeping him sane. “Here,” Dick murmured, holding out his hand to the younger man. Jason’s eyes flicked to his, wary and guarded. Then he set the mug of tea aside and slipped his calloused fingers through Dick’s.

 

Jason stood awkwardly near the door of the bedroom as Dick rummaged through the closet in search of one thing in particular. It had been a joke gift from Barbara six Christmases ago, one of those things that Dick had shoved into the back of his closet and promptly forgot about. Finally, he found it, still in its box and tucked under a stack of old textbooks. The smell hit him as soon as he opened it, spicy and sweet and very strong. Not really his preference but it would do the trick. “What are you doing?” he heard Jason mutter suspiciously.

In answer, Dick placed the candle on the bedside table and lit it. Jason’s nose twitched as the perfume slowly seeped across the room. “Chai tea,” Dick said with a small smile. Jason shifted his weight nervously, arms wrapped protectively around himself. The small source of firelight flickered across his face, making him look even younger and more vulnerable. It was disconcerting, the way such a big man could look so small.

“Figured the smaller room would concentrate the smell more,” Dick explained. “We could watch a movie. Or you could read, I have a bunch of books. If you just want to sleep that’s cool too. I can crash on the couch tonight. Or—.”

“You’re rambling,” Jason interrupted.

“Sorry,” Dick replied softly.

The younger man sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fuck,” he exhaled, followed by a sharp sniff.

“Still smell it?” Dick hazard a guess. A jerky nod was his answer. “Okay, that I think I can fix,” he said, closing the distance between them. He’d done nothing but take a few steps, hadn’t even tried to reach for Jason, but the man flinched back all the same, clenched firsts dropping to his sides in defence. Dick swallowed past the lump that formed in his throat.

Jason had always been touch shy as a kid. Growing up rough as he had, he’d learned to be wary or he wouldn’t have survived. A raised hand more often than not had meant pain, an innocent touch possibly hiding more sinister motives. Dick remembered when he’d first met Jason, all skittish and tense like a junkyard dog.

Dick couldn’t blame him. He could only imagine what Jason had thought was happening to him; a street kid being plucked off the street by a billionaire vigilante out of the mere goodness of his heart? That only happened in fairytales, or cautionary stories mothers told their children to keep them from running away from home.

So shying away from a touch wasn’t anything new, it had just been a really long time since Jason had done it with Dick. The acrobat had made a point to make sure the kid never felt uneasy around him. A gentle hand on the shoulder, a teasing shove, a light swat to the back of the head, all accompanied by easy smiles and calm words. It took a while but Jason eventually got used to Dick’s casual touches and stopped flinching away from them.

It hurt to see it again.

“It’s okay, Jaybird,” Dick murmured. He took a last step, reaching out to brush his fingertips lightly against the younger man’s wrist. “I promise it’s okay,” he soothed, his other hand sliding up Jason’s shoulder. He cupped the back of the bigger man’s head and drew his face down to his shoulder. The tension that radiated from the man’s body was almost palpable. He stood rigidly in Dick’s arms, hands held stiffly at his sides.

“Tell me what you smell,” Dick murmured.

He could feel Jason pulling back against his arms, just enough to not be comfortable but not enough to actually break Dick’s gentle hold. It was like Jason was stuck, torn between wanting to run and wanting to stay. “Breathe, Jay,” Dick commanded gently. “Tell me what you smell.” He felt Jason’s chest rise as he took a long shaky breath.

“Sandalwood soap,” he heard Jason murmur, felt his breath brushing along his collarbone.

“And?” he prompted.

“Cinnamon. Lavender laundry detergent,” he added, brushing his nose against Dick’s shirt.

“Good, that’s good,” Dick murmured, rubbing gentle circles against the man’s lower back. “Just keep breathing. You’re good.” He kept up the mantra, trying to sooth some of the tension from the younger man before he pulled a muscle. “Come on, Little Wing,” Dick murmured eventually, guiding them over to the bed.

He sat Jason down on one side rounded to the other, pausing by the low bookshelf under the window. He caught sight of one specific title and snatched it up, tucking away a small smile. He settled back against the pillows, book in hand.

Jason was still sitting at the very edge of the bed, back ramrod straight. Dick could see the muscles of his back standing out against the shirt, ready to run at a moments notice. He had so many questions bubbling against his lips but he held them back and instead opened the book to the first page and began to read. “The year that Buttercup was born,” Dick began.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Jason muttered.

“The most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.”

“You’re an asshole,” the other man snapped but Dick could hear the humour buried under the harsh words. It wasn’t much but it was there and that was enough.

“Keep your shirt on. Let me read,” Dick said primly.

“And now you’re quoting the movie,” the younger man groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose dramatically.

“I can stop if you want,” Dick offered quietly, closing the book into his lap. There was a pause. Dick tried not to hold his breath.

Carefully, like he was afraid of getting too close, Jason turned around and laid out along the bed. Flat on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The tension didn’t ebb much but it was starting to lessen. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” the younger man said finally, words drawling out in a mocking tone. “I’ll try and stay awake.”

“Now whose quoting the movie,” Dick teased.

The softest hint of a smile flickered across Jason’s face and Dick felt his heart skip a beat. He swallowed thickly, something foreign and invisible lodging in his throat. He dragged his eyes from the other man, focusing back on the pages of the rarely-read book that he may or may not have purchased a mere week earlier. “Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke’s notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the pewter.”

 

 

Dick came awake all of a sudden with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He blinked into the darkness, trying to figure out what was wrong. It took a moment to put his finger on it. It came in sections, like realizing he hadn’t gone to bed alone.

Yet he was alone.

The other side of the bed was empty and seemed to have been for a while. Then his brain registered ragged breathing. Dick searched the dark bedroom for the source of the sound, squinting into the shadows. Finally he spotted him, sitting with his back against the wall below the window. The only thing Dick could see of the man was his hair, spiky against the yellow light from the streetlamp outside.

“Jason,” Dick said cautiously as he slide out from under the sheets. The floor was cold under his feet as he made his way slowly across the room. He tried to temper his movement, going slowly to not startle while attempting to seem as unthreatening as possible.

As he neared, Dick could see the younger man had his head buried in his hands. His forearms were cording with tension as his toes curled against the floorboards. His breath was coming out in rough gasps, chest heaving. “Jay,” he murmured as he crouched down a few feet away from the shaking man.

“Don’t touch me,” Jason rasped.

“I won’t,” Dick said quickly. “I won’t, I promise. I’m gonna stay right here.” He sat crosslegged on the cold floor, wishing he could do more. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked gently.

Silence was all he got.

Dick took a deep breath and settled in for a long wait. It certainly was a long wait. He practised his breathing techniques, went over the entire chemical formula for the antidote to Crane’s new fear toxin, and recited the entire Periodic table twice.

Yet Jason still didn’t move.

Minutes turned into hours and his breathing didn’t change, still rasping out in harsh pants. His hands were fisted in his hair, looking painfully tight. A extra painful breath dragged from Jason’s lungs and Dick jumped as the man slammed his head back against the wall, hard. This wasn’t healthy. Finally, Dick couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Jay,” he said softly.

That’s as far as he got. He barely finished the man’s name before Jason was lunging at him with a snarl. Dick barely had time to get his hands up before his back hit the floor hard. Instinct took over and he hooked his legs over Jason’s hips, flipping the man over. He leapt up to straddle the man’s hips, pinning Jason’s arms to his chest. He didn’t have control for long.

In a surprising show of flexibility from such a big man, Jason got a leg up and around Dick’s throat. The breath knocked from Dick’s lungs as he hit the floorboards and then it was choked off completely as a hand wrapped around his throat. His own hands latched onto Jason’s wrist as he was hauled bodily up off the ground. His toes were barely brushing the ground as he felt the muscles of Jason’s arm flex under his hands.

He stared down at the younger man and a flush of cold ran through his body at what he saw. It wasn’t the physical situation he was it. It wasn’t the burning in his chest as his lungs began to spasm from the lack of oxygen. It wasn’t the way Jason’s lips were twisted into a vicious snarl, teeth bared like an animal.

It was his eyes.

His eyes were _glowing._

Jason’s eyes were luminous in the darkness, radiating a sickly green light. It looked like antifreeze, like the glow sticks from earlier that night. They were otherworldly, eery, filled with rage. They were terrifying. There was absolutely nothing human about those eyes.

Spots were starting to dance before Dick’s eyes and Jason’s grip wasn’t slacking an inch. He swung his legs up and around the arm currently holding him up, creating too much weight for even Jason to hold. Dick felt himself drop, his shoulders hitting the ground hard. He got his feet planted on Jason’s hips and heaved the man up and over his head. He heard Jason crash into the side of the bed, followed by a louder thump as he hit the floorboards.

Dick coughed phlegm, eyes watering as he got to his knees. Jason was already on his feet. His eyes had cleared, no longer glowing but everything about his body still radiated malice. He looked eyes with Dick across the room, something almost feral twisting his face into a nasty snarl.

“Jason,” Dick croaked, throat raw and swollen.

Like a switch being thrown, clarify snapped across Jason’s face. Panic followed quickly. Even in the dark, Dick could see the younger man’s eyes flick to the bedroom door. “Jay, don’t,” he gasped out but Jason was already running. Dick had barely made it to his feet before he heard the front door slam shut.

 

The morning wore on into the afternoon and still there was no sign of Jason. Dick had followed the man for a few blocks before he’d lost him. Jason clearly didn’t want to be found and even Dick couldn’t pick up his trail. So he’d gone home. It was the only thing he could do.

He was perched at the kitchen island, a steaming mug of coffee clenched between his hands, when there was a knock at the door. His heart leapt but he dismissed it as Jason immediately after. Jason wouldn’t use the front door. He’d just climb through the window like a cat burglar. It was probably just a neighbour irritated about the racket last night, or maybe Mrs. Keller lost her cat again. If he ignored them, they’d eventually just go away.

Another knock, sharper this time, rattled the door.

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. He really didn’t wanna deal with anybody today but another knock chased on the heels of the first. Whoever was outside was not going to be dissuaded. “Okay!” Dick called out as he strode across the apartment and yanked the door open. “I heard you the first ti—,” he stuttered to a silence mid snarl.

He was just standing there, not a hair out of place as always with a canvas bag over one arm and a box neatly packed with groceries in his hands. “What are you doing here?” Dick blurted out.

“Good afternoon to you too, Master Dick,” Alfred said primly. “I think by now I am more than familiar with your atrocious dietary habits, which I know worsen during times of heightened stress. I brought pot roast,” he added, indicating the box in his hand.

Dick just stood there, staring. Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Am I particularly special or do you leave all your guests standing on your welcome mat?” he asked dryly. The former Robin swung the door open wordlessly and Alfred whisked by with all his usual grace and exactness.

“And how many cups have we had today, hmmm?” Alfred asked with a nod at the half empty coffee pot sitting next to the stove. “And am I correct in a assuming you haven’t eaten anything either?” he asked as he neatly organized ingredients along the kitchen counter.

“Second pot,” Dick relented, pointedly ignoring the second question.

“It’s a wonder you haven’t developed an ulcer,” the man muttered scoldingly as he put the kettle on the stove and pulled out a teapot Dick knew hadn’t been in his kitchen that morning.

“You are your tea,” Dick drawled, sliding into a seat at the island.

“Many a war has been started over a simple cup of tea, Master Dick,” Alfred called over his shoulder as he rummaged through the cupboards. “And many a peace brokered over the same.”

“Did you come all this way just to scold me about my eating habits and lecture me about tea?” he snarked back. He expected another example of Alfred’s legendary dry wit but what he got instead was plain and painful honesty.

“No, I came all this way because I am worried about you,” Alfred stated frankly, turning to give Dick his full attention. “And it seems I was right in doing so. I assume the excessive consumption of caffeine has something to do this these?” he added, reaching over to pull down the neck of Dick’s hoody to reveal what had to be some pretty impressive bruising.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, shrugging away from the butler’s touch.

“Just the way you’re avoiding making eye contact is also nothing,” Alfred replied swiftly. “Was this Master Jason?” he asked, voice deadly quiet. Dick flushed, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. “I thought as much,” the butler said with a breath.

“It’s not like that,” Dick snapped.

“Then pray tell, what it is like?”

“He had a nightmare. Forgot where he was.”

“I see,” Alfred said quietly.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he insisted, glaring across the island at the Englishman. The kettle whistled shrilly, breaking the tension that had been building in the air. Dick watched as Alfred bustled about the kitchen, filling the teapot and setting out two mugs. They waited in silence as the tea steeped for precisely six minutes. Everything about Alfred was precise.

“You might be interested to know that I’ve been doing some reading up on the Lazarus Pit,” Alfred said out of the blue as he poured the tea. Dick’s eyes snapped up to the elderly man’s face, unable to read anything in his expression as always.

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“There is very minimal literature on the subject but I found one tome by a philosopher whose name has since been lost,” he said, setting the teapot aside on a truncheon. “ ‘And so as Lazarus was risen from his grave to be closer to Christ, so shall be the children of the Pit rise to be closer to Lucifer himself.

“ ‘The wizardry that lives here breathes as if it were the Devil incarnate,” Alfred continued. “Like a sickness, it permeates the very bones of its host to feed from his soul. A weak man shall be consumed by it, driven mad by the whispers of its malice. So too shall a strong man be tested, condemned to an endless fight against the darkness that now exists within him’.”

“You make it sound like he’s possessed,” Dick scoffed even as a chill raced down his spine.

“It’s not dissimilar,” Alfred pointed out. “In plain English, the man theorizes that those who rise from the Pit never truly leave it behind. That a piece of it stays within them, acting like a coercion. A devil on the shoulder, if you will, pushing them to violence.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he breathed.

“Because if the accounts in this tome are accurate, there may be sides to Master Jason that he is not fully in control of,” Alfred said carefully.

_Acid green eyes glowing in the dark._

He’d seen it, the way that violent rage lashed out of Jason like a living, breathing monster. No control. No restraint. It hadn’t even been focus at him personally last night, just in the direction of the nearest perceived danger. Jason hadn’t seen him, he’d seen a threat and reacted.

“So you think Jason’s a lost cause too,” he accused, because anger was easier. It was easier than admitting Alfred might be right. That he _was_ right.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t put words in my mouth, thank you very much,” Alfred said scoldingly. Dick ducked his chin, properly chastised. It didn’t matter how old he got, how grown up he was, Alfred always managed to make him feel ten years old again whenever he took that reproachful tone.

“I’m not giving up on him.”

Alfred turned then, fixing him with a look that had Dick wanting to sink into the floor while simultaneously giving the man a huge hug. “I wasn’t suggesting you do,” Alfred said quietly. “Merely that you don’t have to carry this burden alone.”

Dick swallowed roughly. There was something so gentle and understanding under the stern visage of the proper man that his his throat closing up in a way that had nothing to do with the bruising. Those wrinkle-seamed eyes softened further and in an uncharacteristic show of physical affection, he found himself being pulled into the butler’s arms. Something inside Dick broke and he just held onto Alfred for all he was worth. Alfred to his credit, didn’t rush him and simply held him until he was ready.

“Sorry,” Dick muttered, pulling away reluctantly.

“Nonsense,” Alfred said firmly. “I’ve gotten tougher stains out of my shirts over the years than a few tears.” Dick gave a weak smile at that, scrubbing his nose on his sleeve with a sniff. Alfred gave him a pointed look before producing a handkerchief from seemingly nowhere. “And use this. I taught you better than that,” he scolded gently. Dick gave a watery chuckle, accepting the neatly folded square of linen.

“Now why don’t you go put a salve on those bruises and I’ll make you up something to eat,” Alfred suggested in a tone that clearly implied it wasn’t a suggestion at all.

 

 

Two hours later and Dick was perched on the kitchen counter as Alfred chopped vegetables. He’d already had his attempt to help primly refused, twice. It was a comfortable silence, gentle music playing softly in the background. He’d already been through the guilt trip, Alfred talking him down from going out to try and find Jason. “Master Jason is perfectly capable of taking care of himself,” the Englishman had said reasonably. “He would not take kindly to you chasing after him if he does not want to be found. And if that is the case, you assuredly will not find him.”

The kitchen already smelled delicious, the roast slowly cooking in the oven. It was just like when he was been a kid, watching Alfred cook and trying to steal tidbits while avoiding getting his knuckles smacked by a spoon.

“Ah, I seem to have forgotten the paprika,” Alfred muttered, rummaging through the cloth bag that now sat empty and sagging on the counter. “I supposed it’s a lost cause to ask if you have any,” the man said dryly with a sardonically raised eyebrow.

“I’ll run down to the store,” Dick sighed. He knew it was useless to argue with the Englishman over ingredients. He’d tried before and the outcome was always the same, with Dick trudging out into town to pick up whatever was missing. It never mattered the weather either, so the fact that rain had started lashing at the windows about an hour ago didn’t change anything.

Dick almost tripped over the soggy lump that sat on the floor in the hallway outside his front door.

He was just sitting there, with his arms wrapped around his legs in a cruel parody of the first night Dick found the man huddled on his fire escape. His chin was tucked against his chest, damp hair sticking across his forehead. He was wearing the same sweatpants and t-shirt he’d been in the night before. Now the soaked fabric clung to his body, leaning a wet patch on the drywall. His feet were filthy, bare toes curling nervously into the stained carpet at the sound of the door opening.

Glassy blue eyes that now held no trace of that eery green glow slowly rose from behind one arm. Dick could feel them stall, locking onto his throat with a desperate air. A soft noise, painfully close to a whimper and so very quiet, snuck its way out of Jason’s throat. Those lost-looking eyes eyes flicked away, throat rolling as he swallowed down the rest of the sound.

“I’m okay,” Dick murmured, wincing at the raspiness of his own voice.

Jason’s jaw muscles twitched at the sound. He held himself stiffly, as if made of stone or maybe glass. “Are _you_ okay?” Dick questioned cautiously. Jason didn’t answer, eyes firmly rooted to the floor. There was a stilted jerk of one shoulder and nothing more. “You gonna come inside?” he pressed, crouching down to the younger man’s level. Jason stiffened further at the movement, hands curling into claws as his nails bit into his wrists.

“What, you come back just to hang out in the hallway all day?” he teased. Jason’s throat rolled and Dick the way Jason’s nails were scratching red marks into his skin. “Just come inside, Jay,” he murmured gently. “Please.” Finally, those shoulders dropping an inch and Jason nodding stiffly. Dick held out his hand and waited another good few breaths before numb fingers curled through his and he pulled the bigger man to his feet.

They were mid way into the living room when quiet noises of business from the kitchen reached their ears and Jason froze so suddenly that Dick almost ran into him.

“Easy, it’s just Alfred,” he said.

Jason reared back, muscles coiling. Dick stepped between him and the door, pressing a hand to the man’s lower back. He could feel the tension in the man’s muscles under his touch, the way his breath was hitching in his chest. “Come on, he’s making pot roast,” he urged, carefully herding him towards the kitchen. The younger man’s breath hissed through his nose like a nervous racehorse, muscles wound tight with tension. A part of Jason must have wanted to stay because Dick knew that if the man really wanted to run, it would take a lot more effort that he was currently exerting to make him stay.

“Ah, Master Jason,” Alfred said brightly as they stepped into the kitchen. His tone was pleasant and warm, as if this was just another normal day and they were just another normal family. “Excellent timing. I’m in need of an extra pair of hands and while Master Dick has many talents, mastery of the culinary arts is not one of them.”

“Harsh, Alf,” Dick chuckled, keeping his tone light as he watched Jason out of the corner of his eye. The younger man stood frozen, eyes wide and glassy with his arms hanging stiffly by his sides. As much as Jason may have been afraid of disappointing Dick, they were all terrified of disappointing Alfred.

“Well, come along,” the butler said impatiently, beckoning to the younger man with a large chefs knife. “These mushrooms aren’t going to sauté themselves.”

Stiff and reluctant, Jason finally crossed into the kitchen. Alfred took one look at him and then sniffed. He actually sniffed, looking down his nose as he took in Jason’s appearance. “And for God’s sake, wash your hands before you so much as touch a spoon,” the older man scolded. His voice may be even but Dick could see the way the hand around the knife was shaking, ever so slightly.

“The paprika, Master Dick?”

Dick froze, halfway to sitting at the kitchen island. “Oh, umm.” His eyes flicked from Alfred’s calm ones to the back of Jason’s head as he hunched over the sink. The younger man was so unpredictable these days. Jason hated Bruce with a vengeance, blaming him for so much. He blamed Tim by default and by his association with Bruce. It was a miracle that Dick didn’t seem to be included in that blame and he wasn’t sure where Alfred fell on that spectrum.

“The sooner you go, the faster you’ll return,” Alfred said, turning his back to Dick and going back to chopping whatever it was he had been chopping. Dick hesitated, really not sure about leaving the two men alone together, then blanched at the steely glare the elderly man levelled at him over one shoulder.

“I’ll be quick,” Dick said as he got to his feet. He spared one last glance towards Jason but the younger man wouldn’t look at him. In fact he wouldn’t look at anything other than the fry pan in front of him. He kept his head down as he stirred onions and garlic together.

“Don’t forget to take an umbrella,” Alfred called after him as he made his way to the door.

 

  
Dick ran both ways, sneakers splashing puddle water up the shins of his jeans, but it still took him a good ten minutes to get to the corner store, and another eight minutes to run back. By the time he was sprinting up his stairs, he was soaked through, the stupid jar of red spice tucked in his jacket pocket.

He pushed the door open, freezing as he caught wind of soft murmuring voices drifting from the kitchen. He eased himself through the door as silently as only someone trained by Batman could. He toed off his soaked converses and tiptoed along the wall towards the kitchen. He froze as soon as he could hear them clearly, Jason’s voice rasping alongside Alfred’s lilting cadence.

“Now you listen to me,” Alfred was saying sternly. “Mistakes were made on both sides yes, but I can say with certainty that every single person in this family is very glad to have you back.”

“Bruce doesn’t—,” Jason hissed harshly.

 _“Master Bruce_ most of all, for all he isn’t able to show it,” Alfred interrupted.

A stoney silence echoed from the kitchen, broken only by restless muscles shifting the old wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Dick shifted, ready to step in if things turned ugly. He knew all too well Jason’s reactions to the patriarch of the Bat family. But the Alfred spoke again, clearly unperturbed by the tension that clouded the apartment like a physical presence.

“Regardless, I can understand if the two of you are never able to repair your relationship,” Alfred continued softly. “But don’t shut the rest of us out. We lost you once, Master Jason, don’t put us through that again. I know I for one would not survive that.”

A broken silence followed.

“Oh my dear boy,” he heard Alfred murmur, voice sounding thick and strained. There was the scrape of wood against linoleum and the soft rustle of cloth. Dick swallowed, fighting against the ache that welled in his throat as he listened to soft breathy gasps escaping through clenched teeth.

After a brief moment, there was the sounds of furniture being rearranged and then a harsh sniff. “Honestly,” Alfred scolded quietly from around the corner. “The pair of you boys. One would think you were born and raised in a tent.”

“Naw,” he hard Jason drawl wetly. “Dick was the one born in a tent. I was raised above a whorehouse.” Dick bit the inside of his cheek, smothering the laugh that threatened to bubble past his lips.

The jovial atmosphere didn’t last long. “I hear you haven’t been sleeping well of late,” the butler suddenly commented. Dick winced. However mild the words seemed, the tone behind them was all steel. “And that you’ve been having nightmares. Waking up not knowing where you are. Or who you’re with.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Jason whispered after a long pause. Dick couldn’t help the flinch that rocked through his body. He should have knew that Alfred wasn’t going to leave this well enough alone.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Alfred replied softly. “But you still did.”

He couldn’t listen to this. He shouldn’t be listening to this. For all that he might be the subject of conversation, he felt like he had no right hearing it. He pushed away from the wall, his knees threatening to take a break from supporting his weight, and quietly headed back to the door. He pulled the door open, paused, and then shut it with a firm hand. The quiet murmur of voices came to an abrupt quiet.

When Dick rounded into the kitchen, paprika in hand, he found Alfred by the stove stirring something in a steaming pot. Jason sat at the island, stiff and unmoving. His eyes snapped up to Dick, something flickering there before he looked quickly down.

“Ah, wonderful. Thank you Master Dick,” Alfred said. Dick’s attention snapped back to the elderly man as the tin was plucked from his numb fingers. He watched mutely as the Englishman pinched a sprinkle into the pot before turning the stovetop down.

“I’ll be taking my leave now. Let that to simmer another twenty minutes,” the Englishman said primly, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “It was very nice to see you again, Master Jason,” the Englishman murmured, laying a gentle hand on the younger man’s forearm in passing. Jason’s throat rolled as he swallowed thickly, staring down at the frail looking hand that rested on his massive forearm. His eyes snapped up to Dick, catching him watching. Something unreadable swirled in those stormy blues before he glanced away.

That look lingered in his mind’s eye as Dick followed Alfred to the front door. “Thanks for everything, Alfred,” he remembered to say as he held the front door open for the elderly man.

“Always a pleasure, Master Dick,” Alfred replied. Here he paused, laying a hand on Dick’s forearm in an echo of his interaction with Jason. “Remember what I said,” he said quietly. “You are not alone in this.” He waited, clearly expecting an answer but Dick couldn’t trust his voice. He settled on a nod. It seemed to be enough to satisfy the elderly man. Another prim nod and he was watching the butler’s back disappear down the hallway.

Jason was still sitting in the same spot, hunched in on himself, when Dick stepped back into the kitchen. Teal-blue eyes guarded and wary snapped up to meet his as soon as he rounded the corner. A swirl of emotions clawed at the inside of Dick’s chest. He could guess what Alfred had talked to Jason about. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. What he wasn’t sure of was how Jason was going to handle it now.

“We need to talk,” Jason said quietly.

Of all the options possible, this one wasn’t one Dick had assumed would be first. Jason had never been the open-book, have a heart-to-heart talk about our feelings kind of person. He’d figured it would have taken effort, cajoling, and cornering to get the man to actually talk. Then again, they’d all had their fair share of forcing themselves to deal with uncomfortable things after being faced with Alfred’s disappointed lectures of how they were all emotionally stunted and needed to deal with their issues like adults. Dick had a feeling this wasn’t the first time Jason had gotten that particular talk.

A shuddered breath whispered past chapped lips, tumbling out into the words _“I’m sorry.”_

Dick couldn’t remember ever hearing Jason apologize ever, for anything. As a kid, he’d get flustered, angry even, when he did something wrong. He’d apologize through actions. Maybe he’d fix a broken gadget, or bake something in the kitchen. He’d quietly replace damages he’d caused, getting defensive if anyone commented on it. But he never said it, not out loud.

Teal-blue eyes slowly dragged up from the tabletop and, with seemingly tremendous effort, met Dick’s own blues. They were so intense, something burning in those blue irises that had Dick’s breath catching in his chest.

“I get nightmares,” Jason confessed softly.

“I know,” Dick murmured.

“It’s not an excuse,” the younger man rushed to say. Dick could practically hear Alfred’s snappy inflection behind those words. “But when…when I get like that. Like last night.” Jason stalled, crossing his arms self consciously over his chest. His throat rolled as he struggled to forced the words past numb lips. “I need…Just don’t try to do anything. I’ll come out of it eventually. I always do. It…” He took a deep breath, eyes shifting to fix on something just past Dick’s shoulder. “It helped, knowing you were there.”

“I’ll always be there, Little Wing. I’ve always got your back,” Dick promised, heart in his throat at the man’s quiet confession.

“I know,” Jason murmured, tone choked and damp-sounding. “I know, and that’s why…” He sniffed sharply, cutting himself off. Dick waited, watching as the younger man picked at some invisible flaw in the woodgrain. “Did Alfred tell you what he read about the Pit?” he asked suddenly. The mere mention of that place was spit through clenched teeth, hot and heavy emotions trailing in its wake.

“Yes,” Dick whispered in reply. The elder man’s words had sat heavy on his shoulders all afternoon. They’d been rattling around in the back of his head ever since he found Jason sitting in his front hallway soaking wet with no shoes. It put his nerves on edge and he could only imagine how that information must be weighing on Jason too.

The younger man met his eye again, teal-blue irises swimming and glassy. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of something I don't know how to control,” he breathed.

The silence that echoed in the wake of those words was the loudest sound Dick had ever heard.

“I—,” Dick tried.

It was as if the sound of his voice broke some sort of spell that had woven itself through the silence. It was as if Jason suddenly realized exactly what he’d been saying, the weaknesses he’d revealed. Something hard shuttered over his eyes, snuffing out every inch of vulnerability. He shoved back from the counter abruptly, the stool legs screeching across the tiles in protest. “I need a shower,” he bit out before striding out of the kitchen without a backwards glance, leaving Dick alone with the weight of his confession.

Dick ate dinner alone.

He was just packing away the leftovers when a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. He ignored it, letting Jason do whatever he needed to do. If the man needed space right now, Dick wasn’t going to be the one to deny him that.

He finished tidying the kitchen, setting the dishwasher to turn on in the morning, and wiped down the counters. Clean up finally done, he turned to find Jason curled up on the couch. His back was to Dick, a blanket pulled up around his shoulders. For all intent and purpose, he looked like he was asleep. Dick wasn’t fooled but he let the man have the charade. There would be more time to talk in the morning.

 

A sharp crash yanked Dick from a restless sleep. He sat bolt up in bed, struggling to quiet his heaving lungs so he could listen. Everything was quiet, the bedroom dark and undisturbed. Nothing out of place. Then soft rustlings slipped under the bedroom door, followed by the quiet clinking sounds. Dick slipped down the hall, bare feet silent on the cool hardwood. The apartment was dark, pale moonlight carving slashes of weak light across the floor and furniture. It was just enough light to make out the rough details of the room, of the large figure hunched over the remains of a lamp.

The floor creaked under his toes and he cursed as the figure froze. He knew that squeaky floorboard was there, kept purposefully because it was a subtle forewarning to someone trying to sneak down the hallway. “I’ll buy you a new one,” the shadow muttered.

“ ‘S okay,” Dick murmured, stifling a yawn. He closed the distance, carefully crouching down beside Jason. “Nightmare?” he asked gently. In the dark he couldn’t see the tension that undoubtedly drew across the younger man’s shoulders but he heard the harsh inhale of breath. Then as quickly as it came the tension released.

“Yeah,” Jason sighed, rocking back on his haunches. It was the easiest confession Dick had ever got from the man. Maybe he was too tired to fight him, or maybe he was just tired of fighting. “Crash woke me up. I’ll buy you a new one,” he said again, starting to collect the larger shards.

“Never really liked this lamp anyways,” Dick mused as he plucked the crumpled shade from amidst the mess. “Alfred’s cousin gave it to me for a birthday or a housewarming, I can’t remember. Weird batty woman, never stopped complaining about the weather.”

“Was that the one with the ratty mink stole?” Jason asked. “I remember her. She visited the manor not long after I arrived,” he continued after Dick’s affirming hum. “God, that coat was awful. Smelled like tapioca and mothballs. And she wouldn’t stop pinching my cheeks.”

The easy banter continued back and forth as they finished cleaning up the broken pieces and Dick swept the area clean of any lingering shards. Once it was done, the ease with which Jason had existed in Dick’s space dried up. His body grew stiff again, movements unsure and eyes unsettled. “Sorry I woke you,” he said gruffly, flicking off a stray piece of glass from his pants.

“ ’S fine,” Dick replied.

“Well, night then,” the younger man said, brushing past him towards the couch again. There was something so painful about the way Jason was perched stiffly on the edge of the cushion, clearly waiting for Dick to leave so he could relax the defences he kept wound so tightly around him. Dick opened his mouth, hesitated, then figured ‘fuck it’ and dove right into the deep end.

“We could share again, if you wanted to,” he offered.

Jason’s piercing eyes snapped over to him, glaring brightly in the pale darkness. “Wanting to take playing house to the next level, Goldie? I didn’t think you swung that way,” he drawled sharply, casual tone in sharp contrast to the tension across his shoulders. Dick sighed, ignoring the jab about his sexuality. Now wasn’t the time to get defensive.

“You slept better,” Dick couldn’t help but point out.

“Oh, and was that before or after I tried to kill you?” Jason snapped cruelly.

For all the barb was snapped out towards him, Dick knew that the anger was directed inwards. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he pressed. “Tell me you didn’t sleep better last night and I’ll leave it alone. You can go back to catnapping on this lumpy ass couch and breaking all my lamps.”

Jason fixed him with a glare, conveying without words exactly what he thought of that comment. But his hands were clenched into fists by his sides and there was something else flickering deep behind his eyes. It was like he wanted to say something but was stopping himself. He looked torn. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was fear.

Dick wasn’t sure what was holding the younger man back but he did know one thing. He wasn’t about to let Jason sleep another night on that fucking couch. He slowly closed the gap until he was standing inches from the taller man, ducking his head to try and catch Jason’s eye. “You don’t have to do this alone,” he murmured.

A red flush crawled up the back of Jason’s neck, made more prominent by the pale light streaking in through the windows. “It’s not your job to fix me,” he muttered sharply.

“You’re right, it’s not,” Dick replied calmly. “Because you don’t need to be fixed, Jay. You’re not broken.”

Something painfully vulnerable flickered across Jason’s face as his carefully constructed masks finally started to crumble. “Yes I am,” he finally whispered brokenly. “I know I am, I mean look at me.” He waved a hand vaguely over his own chest, cheek twitching as he struggled to keep his composure. “I was a fuck up before I died and I’m an even bigger one now. I’m not right, Dick. He—he—.” His words stuttered as his eyes rolled wildly, glassy and over-bright in the shadows. “He ruined me,” he choked out, his voice sounding like broken glass.

Those three little words buried themselves deep in Dick’s chest and refused to come out. They burned cold, freezing out the air in his lungs. “Bullshit,” he growled, putting all his hurt and anger into the words and turning them into iron. Jason flinched at the force behind his tone. Dick took a knee, crouching down beside the bigger man. “Bullshit,” he repeated, softer this time. “You’re not ruined. You’re a survivor.”

Jason’s jaw wobbled before he ground his molars together, muscles twitching. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. His hand reached out and Dick felt the ghost of a touch brush across the side of his throat.

“I know,” he murmured, placing a hand gently on Jason’s knee. “We’ll figure it out, Little Wing. I told you before I’m not going anywhere.”

Jason let out a choked sound, halfway caught between a laugh and a sob. His eyes looked blurred and teary but his cheeks stayed dry as he hitched shaky breath after shaky breath. Dick just traced soothing patterns around Jason’s anklebone and waited it out.

Slowly, Jason’s breath evened out and quietened. The tension in the muscles under his hand slowly relaxed. Jason leaned forward over his knees, burying his face in his hands. For a moment, Dick thought the man had fully lost it but then muffled words filtered through his fingers.

“Your couch is shit.”

 

 

  
For the second time in a row, Dick startled awake. This time he didn’t heard a crash, or feel a sense of overwhelming wrongness. It was quiet, the gentle hum of the traffic below signalling that the city was starting to wake up. He lay in the darkness, trying to figure out what had pulled him from sleep this time, when a soft whimper reached his ears.

He rolled over towards the sound. Jason’s back was to him, shoulders twitching. The man didn’t seem to be awake or in that catatonic state from the night before. He seemed to be truly asleep and caught up in the beginnings of a nightmare.

Dick took a breath, ready to defend himself this time if need be, and carefully brushed his fingertips down Jason’s shoulder blade. The reaction was immediate and not even close to what Dick was expecting. Lightning fast, Jason and rolled over and pressed himself against Dick’s side. The man’s head pillowed on Dick’s shoulder, one leg hooking over his thigh. A hand fisted in the front of his shirt and he felt a breath stuttering against the side of his neck.

“Jay?” he breathed, not daring to move.

Jason said nothing, his breath slowly evening out. The younger man was fast asleep. Slowly, the hand in his shirt relaxed and the bigger man went boneless against his chest. Unwilling to disturb the man from a much needed sleep, Dick just gently wrapped an arm around Jason’s shoulders.

It was soothing to feel the other man’s back rise and fall against his arm, the gentle exhales brushing against his collarbone, the reassuring weight pressed against his side. He brushed his fingers lightly up and down Jason’s spine as he closed his eyes.

He floated, feeling comfortable and relaxed in a way he hadn’t in weeks. If he was being truthful, he couldn’t properly recall the last time he felt this at peace. This safe. A fuzzy feeling bloomed deep in his chest, warming him down to his toes. He could get used to this, falling asleep with his arms wrapped around…oh.

Dick’s eyes snapped open. His arms went rigid, his heart pounding wildly in his chest as he stared down at the thatch of dark hair pillowed on his chest.

He was in so much fucking trouble.

 

 


	9. I Can't Keep My Head Above Water

  
“I spy with my little eye someone who stole Daddy’s credit card,” Jason drawled as he peered through the binoculars at the fancy club below.

Dick snorted from where he sat next to him, back against the half wall on the roof they were staking out the club from. The base-heavy music from the The Killjoy thumped loudly, perforated by drunken catcalls and honking horns. They’d been there for hours waiting for their target to show. They were after some high powered party boy whose new designer drug Flux had lead to a spike in overdoses in Bludhaven. It had been on the market for less than two weeks and people were already dead. Dick had been monitoring the situation for a while now but Jason had come to him with the last piece of the puzzle; the source.

It was odd, working like this with Jason. He’d worked with Red Hood fine in the past, but now knowing it was Jason under that red metal had shifted the dynamic. Not to mention the butterflies that clawed the inside of his stomach whenever he made the man laugh….

Fuck.

Dick shook his head sharply, shoving the thought aside. It had been one thing when Hood had been a faceless vigilante with too many muscles and a wickedly sharp sense of humour. Disgust churned in Dick’s stomach and turned inwards. What the hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t that Jason was a man. Dick had come to terms with his sexuality a long time ago, which was as flexible as the acrobat himself.

Alfred knew, of course. No one could keep a secret from Alfred. He’d been the first to know, when Dick was still in high school. He’d been struggling because his first girlfriend had just broken up with him after accusing him of being gay. She’d caught him staring at Kevin Lachlan’s ass during assembly.

It had been confusing because while he’d definitely been staring at Kevin, he’d spent equally as much time staring at Klara Trent. The accusation had hurt. The way she’d said it felt somehow shameful. He’d been pulling into himself more and more when Alfred had made his support known, quietly and unobtrusively. Dick will always be grateful to the man for it.

Kori had told him, which had been a surprise. “You resinate differently,” she’d said, like it explained everything which it definitely didn’t. “On my planet, you would be called _X’Heldar_. It means to be balanced,” she’d added with a smile.

Roy found out by walking in on Dick with a guy because of course that’s how he would find out. He’d pulled Dick aside later and had stumbled through a painfully awkward assurance that this didn’t change anything. Dick wasn’t sure which was redder, Roy’s hair or his own face.

If Bruce knew, he never said anything and Dick wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed by that.

So it wasn’t that Jason was a man. It was that Jason was _Jason_. This was the kid who’d looked up to him like a brother, who’d idolized him. Jason was just starting to trust him again and if he found out…no, he could never find out. It would ruin everything. It was just an infatuation, left over from when Red Hood had just been an anonymous man hidden behind leather and metal. That’s it. It would pass and everything would be fine.

“You okay there, Goldie?” Jason drawled, startling Dick out of his memories. “You look like you’re trying to solve the Millennium Problems or some shit.”

Dick couldn’t help but roll his eyes, shoving everything down and locking it away. “The hell you know about the Millennium Problems?” he snarked.

“I’m not as stupid as I look,” Jason retorted, peering through the binoculars again.

“Bingo,” he muttered.

Dick’s eyes snapped up, the professional persona of Nightwing wrapping itself around him and shutting everything out. He got to his knees next to the bigger man who handed him the binoculars without a word. Dick scanned the street, finding a slim man with slicked back dark hair stepping out of a limo and into the club, flanked by four massive bodyguards.

“Plan A or B?”

“Whichever plan doesn’t get anyone killed,” Dick snarked without thinking, most of his attention on the club below. He felt Jason still beside him.

“I don’t do that anymore,” the man confessed softly.

Dick’s head whipped around, staring at the man in disbelief.

“And now everyone in Gotham and ‘haven thinks I’ve gone soft which hasn’t made it any easier,” the man grumbled but all Dick could do was stare. This was the man that two months ago had threatened him if he ever confronted him about his methods. And now Jason was saying he didn’t kill anymore.

“Since when?”

“Since the night you asked me to stay,” came the reluctant answer.

Dick stared. If there had been any flies around, he’d been catching plenty. Jason shifted uneasily under his scrutiny. “What?” he snapped defensively. “I wasn’t about to deal with your face every time I came back from patrol. Like a fucking kicked puppy.”

“But that…that was months ago,” Dick accused incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now,” he deflected gruffly. Dick just kept staring. He couldn’t help it. Jason cast a glance towards him, lips curling. “Shut the fuck up,” he growled, getting to his feet and readying his grapnel. For once Dick listened and said nothing else, for now. This was definitely a conversation he planned on revisiting later.

 

They’d made it to the roof of the club without a hassle, stealing up quietly to the massive skylight in the middle of the roof. Three stories down was the dance floor, a massive throng of bodies gyrating amongst the flashing lights. Railings wrapped around the edge of each of the three floors, the VIP sections delighted to the top one. They’d arrived just in time to see their target slip through a back door, two of his bodyguards staying behind to stand guard.

A soft rustle of air displaced behind them. Dick and Hood whirled in tandem, the former unfurling his escrima sticks and the latter’s arm snapping up, gun in hand. “Robin,” Dick said, lowing his weapons as he recognized the familiar cape and mask on the boy standing a few yards away.

“Nightwing,” Time replied stiffly. His attention flicked to Jason, who hadn’t lowered his weapon.  
With a sigh, Dick gently placed a hand on the bigger man’s wrist, pushing down. He felt Jason resist but he finally relented, lowering his arm under Dick’s touch to hang stiffly by his side. “So what, you’re working with this asshole now?” Tim exclaimed, still not knowing who it was that was under the red metal.

“Oh you’re just asking for pain, pipsqueak,” Jason snarled, taking an aggressive step forward.

“What are you doing in Bludhaven?” Dick intervened, blocking Jason’s charge with an arm across his chest.

“Flux made it to Gotham. Killed two collage kids,” Tim explained, eyes not looking away from Jason for a second. “We tracked the supplier here. Which you would know if you ever picked up your phone,” he accused.

Dick flushed. He had been ignoring any calls with a Gotham area code as of late. Ever since his falling out with Bruce, he’d really not made any effort to be in contact with the bat family, minus Alfred. He just knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back the scathing words. He didn’t want to say something he’d come to regret. “Where’s B?” he asked, feeling Jason stiffen beside him.

“Already inside. I’m here to watch the exits in case of stragglers.”

Dick hummed, reaching for the little control in his gauntlet as he adjusted his comms. “Batman?” he said after finding the correct frequency.

“Nightwing,” replied the familiar rumbling voice.

“Need a couple extra hands?” he asked, subtly letting the man know that he hadn’t come alone. He wasn’t about to call Batman out for playing on his turf, not after he’d clearly ignored the attempts to contact him about just that. That was an argument he knew he wouldn’t win.

There was a long pause before Bruce finally replied. “There’s a back entrance to the private room on the third floor.”

“We’ll wait for the signal,” Dick replied, giving Tim a quick nod as he turned to Jason.

“No one dies tonight,” Bruce said sternly, causing Dick to falter as he realized the man wasn’t talking to him anymore. He clearly assumed that Jason had also tapped into the same frequency. “You work with us on this, you do so by my rules. No one dies. You hear me?”

He could feel Tim’s eyes burning into the back of his skull, having heard every word. He saw the way Jason’s fingers twitched against the trigger on his Glock.

“Heard,” Jason murmured and holstered his weapon. Dick blinked. The younger man had just voluntarily holstered his weapon, had just conceded to Bruce without a fight. Maybe he really was trying to make a change. Jason glanced his way, before turning back to Tim, who was standing with his hands on his hips and a hostile twist to his lips. “Looks like you’re stuck with us, pipsqueak,” Jason smirked.

Tim didn’t replied directly to the bigger man. Instead, his gaze shifted back to Dick. “Watch your back,” was all Tim said before turning heel and stalking off to the back of the roof. Dick shot Jason a look as they turned and headed towards their own entrance point, which was a small skylight set further back above the kitchens.

“What?” the bigger man snapped.

“ _‘You’re just asking for pain.’_ Really?” Dick drawled.

“Oh, like all your one-liners are fucking Shakespeare,” Jason reported, slipping the flimsy lock on the skylight with ease.

The window stopped about halfway, a security chain stopping it from opening further. Dick just smirked and wiggled himself easily through the narrow space. He caught himself on the sill with one hand while he pulled the pin on the security chain. Then he let go, dropping a few feet down to land lightly on the balls of his feet. A moment later and Jason landed next to him, a little heavier but no less graceful.

“Showoff,” the younger man muttered.

They could hear soft murmuring voices as they neared the back entrance to the private room. Dick took a grounding breath, escrima sticks in hand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jason crack his neck, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension that had gathered there. The voices were getting louder, heated like an argument was brewing. “In position,” Dick murmured softly.

“On my signal,” he heard Bruce rumble. Anticipation and adrenaline spiked, sharpening his focus and heightening his awareness. The voices grew to a shout and a flurry of movement could be heard on the other side of the wall.

“Something’s wrong,” Tim said through the comms, sounding alarmed.

Then everything went quiet. Very quiet. Dick frowned, straining to hear anything that might give a clue to what was happening on the other side of the wall. He took a hesitant step forward.

 _“Wait,”_ Jason hissed.

The wall exploded outwards in a storm of splinters and gunfire.

Dick threw himself backwards. He flipped over a stack of crates, smashing through an empty fish tank before landing in a graceless heap as bullets slammed into the crates. He lay on his side, panting. His breath kept hitching in his chest, sending waves of pain vibrating across his chest. His shoulder was on fire and in the low light he could see blood smearing the cement floor where the glass had sliced through his gloves and into his hands.

Red liquid was beginning to pool and Dick’s brain finally realized that there was way too much blood for just a few little cuts. He clapped a hand to his side as a flare of pain rippled across his ribs with his next breath. That hand came away scarlet, glittering wetly in the light. Dick glanced down, panic closing his throat as he saw the growing dark patch that was spreading out from his side.

Armour-piercing rounds. Cop Killers, they were called. Apparently they didn’t differentiate when it came to vigilantes.

Dick’s head snapped up as a man in a dark suit brandishing a fully automatic rifle rounded the corner of the crates. His fingers scrabbled for a weapon but his fingers were soaked with blood and slipped on the shiny metal of his wing-dings.

Then Jason was there, wrapping a hand around the barrel of the gun and yanking it up just as the gun fired. Bullets slammed into the ceiling, showering them with plaster dust as Jason smashed the gun viciously into its owner’s face. He yanked the man forward, the strap putting the suit off balance before a boot to the temple dropped him.

Then Jason caught sight of him, sprawled on his side in a pool of blood, and something shifted. Dick could feel it. It gathered around the younger man like a menacing shroud. Dick shivered and it had nothing to do with the blood loss.

A man suddenly rushed Jason from behind, a knife gripped in his hand. Dick’s mouth opened to shout a warning but no sound came out. It didn’t matter. As graceful as water, Jason sidestepped the man at the last minute and calmly snapped his neck. The man dropped like a brick.

Dick’s vision wobbled, sounds echoing and distorting like he was underwater as Jason turned and mowed his way through the remaining gunmen with deadly precision. Dick rolled onto his side, struggling to get his feet underneath him. He had to get up. He had to move. He got to his hands and knees but then his arm gave out as fire ripped through his shoulder and he slumped to his side again. Gunfire echoed like it was miles away instead of mere feet. The floor tilted dizzyingly. It was getting really hard to breath.

Then everything got really quiet.

Hands were suddenly on his shoulders and Dick flinched away in panic. “You’re okay, Goldie,” a familiar voice modulator rasped. Dick blinked, clearing watery eyes to peer up at Jason’s red helmet. “See? You’re fine. Barely a mosquito bite.” The hands on his shoulder began to move down the front of his chest. They brushed over his stomach and Dick arched away touch with a choked gasp. “Okay, that one’s no mosquito bite,” Jason muttered.

He was saying other things too but Dick couldn’t focus on it. His head lolled back as he was suddenly scooped off the ground and cradled against a strong chest. There was the jarring pain of being carried and a moment of weightlessness before a harsh landing that had white pain searing across his vision. “Sorry, sorry,” Jason murmured, carefully lowering Dick to the ground.

The older man squinted up at the younger, red metal blurring before his eyes. “I don't like your helmet,” he found his lips saying without his brain really understanding the words.

“Okay?” Jason huffed, shedding his leather jacket to pillow it under Dick’s head.

Dick frowned, refusing to give up this train of thought. “I can’t see your eyes,” he continued to ramble. “You have nice eyes. Like the sky. Or a cat. A sky cat.”

“You’re in shock,” the younger man grumbled.

“You’re a shock,” Dick retorted, then frowned because he wasn’t sure if that made sense. He was starting to shiver and he wasn’t entirely sure that he could still feel his legs. Pain ripped white-hot through his body like a physical wave as Jason pressed a bandage against his side. His breath choked in his throat, punching from his lungs with a harsh hollow sound.

“I know, I know,” the younger man murmured.

“ ‘M cold,” he said, teeth chattering.

“Just a little longer, pretty bird. Help’s on the way. Just stay awake,” Jason soothed.

Something brushed gently against his cheek in a soothing touch. His eyes fluttered, struggling to stay focused. His visioning was starting to darken around the corners. Then a gloved hand descended from nowhere, grabbing Jason by the collar and yanking him out of sight. Dick only had time to gasp before everything fell away into darkness.

 

 

Dick woke to shouting. He opened his eyes, staring up at a white ceiling. Everything was swimming in the soft haze of narcotics. “Jay,” he murmured, trying to sit up. Small but strong hands pushed him firmly down again. 

“Don’t move,” a voice snapped as Tim’s face swam into view.

“What happened?” Dick asked but the words came out sideways and sounded more like _“Wa’ h’pn’d?”_

“It’s all right, Master Dick,” came another familiar voice by his shoulder, grounding and familiar.

“Alfred?”

“The same,” the man said. The yelling was getting louder, familiar voices snarling back and forth. Alfred’s eyes flicked disapprovingly to something Dick couldn’t see before refocusing back to him with a reassuring smile. “You were shot,” Alfred explained. “You need surgery but not to worry. You’re in good hands.”

Another face replaced Alfred’s, stern and professional but with kind eyes. “Hello again, Richard,” the grey-haired woman said briskly, worry and reproach waring for dominance in her eyes.

“Leslie?” Dick asked, blinking in surprise. “What are you doing in Bludhaven?”

Dr. Tompkins spared him a quick glance as she got on with her examination. “You’re in Gotham, Richard. Do you remember being flown here?” Dick shook his head mutely, struggling to pull coherent thoughts through the haze of painkillers.

“Master Bruce airlifted you and Master Jason from Bludhaven and flew you directly here,” Alfred explained from somewhere behind Dick’s head.

Dick frowned, glancing around. He was surrounded by medical equipment. There was an IV port in the back of his hand. His domino was gone, in its place was an oxygen mask strapped over his nose and mouth. His suit had been cut away, his legs and groin covered with a soft sheet. Then, like a released rubber band, everything snapped back into place. The raid at the nightclub. Tim was there. Bruce as well. There had been bullets and blood and pain.

A gentle hand on his cheek and a murmuring voice telling him to stay awake.

“Are you even hearing yourself right now?!” That was the voice, but now the tone was angry and harsh. “I told you, I don’t do that anymore,” Jason spat.

“The six bodies lying in the back of a Bludhaven nightclub say otherwise,” Bruce snarled back.

“That’s different! They almost killed D—.”

“It’s not different and that’s the problem. You don’t see that there isn’t a difference. You never did.”

“Shut up!”

Dick flinched as Tim’s voice cracked through the room. Both men fell silence, shock hanging in the air between them. “Now’s not the time or place to air your bullshit so will the two of you just shut up,” the boy snapped.

Dick couldn’t help the giddy giggle that slipped past his lips, hearing Tim dress down two of the most dangerous men in Gotham like a disappointed school teacher. He gasped as a sudden pain rippled across his chest, choking the breath from his lungs. He coughed weakly but it only made the pain worse and he spasmed up off the bed with a groan.

“Okay, everybody out,” Leslie ordered briskly.

“Little pinch, Master Dick,” Alfred said.

Something cold flooded through his veins, racing up behind his sinuses and Dick felt the irresistible pull of general anesthesia. He hated it, the uncertainty, the vulnerability, being alone when he was this weak. He fought against it, panic thrumming through his chest at the sensation. “No, no,” he whimpered, hand scrabbling at the oxygen mask.

Machines shrieked in protest. Hands were on him, pressing him down. Holding him down. Trapping him. A cacophony of voices overlapped, soothing tones grating on his ears. He was trapped. This wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe. He had to get away. 

Then _he_ was there, shoving Tim unceremoniously to the side.

“Easy, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Dick stared up at Jason’s face, bare of his domino and brimming with worry. He felt a hand on his wrist, pulling it away from the mask. The mask was adjusted to sit more comfortably against his nose. That hand slide up to carefully thread gun-calloused fingers through his own. “Damn, Goldie, you know you’re supposed to dodge the bullets, right?” Jason teased but worry made the words too sharp.

“Oops,” Dick whispered.

Bright eyes swam before his vision. He fell into those eyes, getting lost and floating out into a teal-blue sea. You gonna be here when I wake up, right? Dick thought as his eyes drooped against his will.

“Yeah, birdbrain. I’ll be here.”

Dick hadn’t even realized he’d spoken out loud. The drugs in his system refused to allow him to feel embarrassed. Instead, a sad smile tugged at his lips. “I know yer lyin’,” he murmured, feeling Jason’s stiffen against his hand. “Bu’ tha’s okay. I know….” He never did say what he knew because the drugs finally did their job and he was pulled into the abyss. As everything faded away, the last thing that disappeared from his awareness was the calloused fingers threaded through his own.

 

  
Dick surfaced to consciousness like a man underwater. Awareness flickered in and out. Sounds fluttered past his ear, murmured voices and mechanical beeps. Occasionally he thought he heard his name but he could never hold onto coherency long enough to know for sure.

One voice stood out above all the rest, a low rumble, soothing and familiar. He could pick out flashes of sensations. A warm touch sweeping the hair back from his face. Fingertips tracing down his jaw. Something brushing against his lips, barely there and so very gentle.

The next time Dick awoke, it was with more clarity even if he still felt bone tired. He blinked, looking around the room sleepily. Rich wood walls, expensive green curtains tucked against multi-paned windows. A stone fireplace was tucked into the far wall, with plush armchairs in a matching green on either side.

He glanced down at himself, feeling the tug of a cannula against his nose. He was shirtless, blankets and sheet tucked up past his hips. There was an IV line attached to the shunt in the back of his hand. White sterile bandages wrapped around his torso and up across his chest and shoulder. His hands were bandaged too.

Alfred sat next to him, in a cushioned armchair with a book in hand. As if sensing that Dick was awake, the older man placed the book aside and got to his feet. “How are we feeling, Master Dick?” he said brightly, placing the back of his hand on Dick’s forehead.

“Peachy,” Dick rasped, his throat sore and scratchy. A straw was presented in front of his lips and he sucked down the cool liquid gratefully. “Little sips,” Alfred cautioned, just as he had when Dick was little and had the flu.

“What happened?” he asked as Alfred set the cup aside.

“You were shot,” Alfred said, perching on the edge of the bed. “Armoured piercing rounds shredded your kevlar. One hit your left shoulder, a through and through. You’ll need physiotherapy to get the muscles back to peak condition. The second bullet hit between your seventh and eighth ribs. One rib broke, the other cracked. You also had multiple lacerations across your hands from the glass you fell through. You lost a great deal of blood but you’ll make a full recovery.”

“We’re at the manor,” Dick stated, glancing around the lavish room again.

“Yes, I put you in the Empress Suite. It’s bigger than your old room and better suited to all the equipment that was needed to monitor you,” Alfred replied.

“Is everyone home?” he asked, trying to to be too obvious.

He clearly failed, if the knowing look in Alfred’s eye was anything to go by. “Master Jason isn’t here,” the older man replied.

“But I remember,” Dick began, trailing off as he struggled to pull the memories out of the haze of drugs and pain. He remembered him being there. He remembered a rumbling voice and a warm gun-callused hand in his.

“Master Jason flatly refused to be separated from you all the way from Bludhaven,” Alfred explained. “And he stayed by your side up until Dr. Tompkins discharged you to the manor.”

“Oh,” Dick breathed. “I remember him and Bruce fighting,” he added, the snarled voices echoing back through his memory.

“Ah yes, some choice words were certainly exchanged.”

“He killed people didn’t he?” Dick asked softly. He already knew the answer as Alfred took a slow measured breath. He couldn’t stop him self from asking “How many?”

“Six,” was the older man’s answer. “The gunmen from the club. The ones who shot you.”

Dick swallowed around the lump in his throat, feeling tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. “I didn’t want him to do that,” he confessed, somehow feeling like this was all his fault. If he hadn’t been sloppy and gotten himself shot, then maybe Jason wouldn't have killed those men.

Alfred didn’t say anything to that. There wasn’t anything to say that wouldn’t sound like placating bullshit and the Englishman knew that. “Get some rest,” he said gently as he got to his feet. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours.”

As the door clicked shut, Dick felt the tears he’d been holding back leak silently back across his temples. He sniffed, the cool flow of oxygen helping to clear the stuffiness that came with holding back tears. The anesthesia that still heavy in his system, making his limbs heavy and sleep so very alluring. Given the circumstances, he was more than happy to succumb to that pull.

 

  
Once again, when he woke for a second time, he wasn’t alone. A woman sat beside him, wheelchair angled towards him. Her auburn hair was tied in a knot on the crown of her head, a few strands framed her face. Whatever was on her phone held her complete attention, thumb hovering over the screen as she scrolled rhythmically.

“Hey you,” he murmured, swallowing dryly as he blinked drugged sleep from his eyes. The woman glanced up from her phone, hazel eyes wide. A small relieved smile tugging at her lips as her gaze landed on him.

“Hey yourself,” Barbara said warmly. “How are you feeling?” Dick would have shrugged but his shoulder felt like someone had shoved a hot poker through it and he said just that. “Always the flare for the dramatics, Grayson,” she teased.

“You can take the boy from the circus but you can’t take the circus from the boy,” Dick proclaimed in a lazy sing-song voice. Barbara hummed a gentle laugh before her eyes sobered. She reached up, wrapping her slender fingers around his wrist.

“You scared me,” she said softly.

Dick twisted his wrist around to interlace their fingers, squeezing hers gently. Barbara got herself turned around, placed her other hand on his. She pressed her lips against his knuckles, to which he responded by tweaking her nose. They sat quietly, simply taking comfort in each others presence. Dick’s had always had a close friendship with Barbara. In his teen years, that friendship had developed into a near debilitating crush which was eventually reciprocated before they both realized that they were better off as friends.

A soft creak of old wood broke the meditative state the two of them had fallen into. Dick glanced up, seeing Tim hesitating in the doorway. “Hey kiddo,” he said quietly. Slowly, Tim edged his way into the room, perching stiffly on the edge of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, eyes flittering across the bandages that wrapped around Dick’s upper body.

“Little groggy but I’m okay,” he answered. “Thanks for getting me home,” he added. He couldn’t resist reaching up to ruffle Tim’s hair because Dick knew he hated it. Tim didn’t protest the treatment, didn’t even pull away from the touch which had red flags going off in Dick’s head. “Okay spill. What’s wrong?” he said sternly, fixing the boy with what he hoped was an authoritative look.

“How long have you known about Jason?” Tim asked quietly.

Dick sucked in a shaky breath. He should have known that this was coming. Foggy memories had Jason’s bare face staring down at him He felt Barbara’s hand tense in his.

“What’s this about Jason?” the woman asked, puzzled.

Dick bit back a curse. Of course Barbara didn’t know. How could she when the only reason Tim knew was because he’d been there when Jason must have unmasked himself at the clinic. “Tim, can you give us a minute?” he asked quietly. Tim at least had the decency to look guilty, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. He nodded stiffly and slipped out, closing the door behind him.

“Dick,” Barbara said warningly as Dick turned to face her.

“Jason’s alive,” he said simply. No stalling. No bullshit. Just the truth. It was a pact they’d made a long time ago and had kept in good standing. He’d lied enough to her by omission during these past few months.

“W-what?”

“He’s alive, Babs.”

“Oh my god,” she breathed, breath stuttering on the exhale. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Dick replied honestly. “I don’t think he really does either but he’s alive. He’s been alive for five years.”

Barbara’s breath hitched, her hands clenching hard against Dick’s. “Five years,” she whispered, her eyes starting to fill. She swallowed thickly, struggling to compose herself. “How long have you known?” she asked.

Dick hesitated, staring down at their interlocked hands. “A few months,” he confessed.

“Months?” she breathed. “Months?!” she exclaimed, louder this time, before yanking her hands away from his.

“Bruce has known since—,”

“I don’t give a shit about Bruce. I’ll deal with him later. How could you?” she accused, eyes over-bright and threatening to overflow. “You’ve known for months and what, it didn’t even occur to you that there were other people who deserved to know too? Who would want to know?”

Dick winced, feeling the flinch reverberate tenfold through his wounds. Barbara’s words echoed uncomfortably close to the ones he himself had flung at Bruce after finding out. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling his own eyes start to burn. “I’m sorry. He just…he blames Bruce for everything, blames Tim too. And I never know what or who is gonna set him off. He’s….god, Babs, he’s been through so much.”

His breath hiccuped in his chest. The drugs in his system had his defences down and he was losing the battle to keep the tears at bay. “I know I should have told you, but I’ve barely been able to keep him from running and disappearing again as it is and we already lost him once. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t have it be my fault and everyone blame me and—.”

“Okay, okay, shhh,” Barbara soothed, taking Dick’s hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have accused you like that,” she murmured, brushing her thumb soothingly across his knuckles. “But Dick, you have to know that it’s not your fault. None of it is. Not back then and not now.”

She said it gently but her tone brokered nothing but agreement. She had that way about her. It was something Dick both loved and hated about her. So he nodded stiffly, scrubbing a hand across his cheeks roughly. His shoulder was aching fiercely and his nose was all stuffed up. A headache was pounding at his temples and he was starting to feel a little nauseous.

“Okay, you need to rest. Hey, look at me,” Barbara scolded. Dick dragged his eyes over to meet her gentle gaze. “I don’t blame you,” she said gently. Relief thrummed through his chest, releasing a tension from his muscles he hadn’t even know was there.

“You’re not mad?” he whispered.

“Oh, I’m plenty mad,” she corrected. “But not at you. We’ll talk about this all later, once you’ve gotten some rest.”

Dick nodded, already feeling exhaustion weighing heavy on his bones. His eyes fluttered, threatening to close but he fought back against it. “Will…will you stay?” he asked softly, unafraid to be vulnerable around her. She smiled softly, giving his hand a squeeze.

“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” Barbara promised.

Dick nodded sleepily, finally letting himself relax against the pillows.

 

  
Dick should be getting used to waking up to people sitting by his bedside by now but he really wasn’t. It was Bruce this time, sitting in a chair with his hands folded in his lap, looking stoic as ever. Dick closed his eyes again, wishing he’d never woke up. “If you’re here to say ‘I told you so’ I’m really not in mood,” he muttered.

“He saved your life. I’m not going to make a joke of that just for spite.”

Dick took a slow breath, turning to look at the older man. A bruise danced across Bruce’s temple, shadowing into his hairline. His knuckles were also bruised, a couple split and sore-looking. He looked uncomfortable, sitting stiffly like he couldn’t get comfortable. His expression was locked down as usual, not giving anything away.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“What really happened in that warehouse?” Dick asked instead, ignoring Bruce’s placating question. He wanted answers. Bruce had danced around the topic enough and Dick had finally had enough. He wasn’t going to let the man evade the topic any longer.

Surprisingly, the man didn’t even try.

“It was a trap,” Bruce said, blindsiding Dick with is immediate honesty. “It was a trap for me,” the older man explained. “Jason had the Joker there. Gave me a gun, said I had a choice. That the only way I could stop him from killing the clown was to shoot him myself. I couldn’t let either happen so I disarmed Jason with a batarang.” Here Bruce paused, swallowing thickly. “Didn’t matter in the end,” he continued. “He’d rigged the building to blow. Brought the whole thing down on top of us.”

“Did you even look for him?” Dick asked harshly.

“I did.”

“And you didn’t find him.”

“No.”

“But you found the Joker,” he stated flatly.

“Yes,” was the calm answer.

“Goddamnit Bruce,” he growled, clenching his hands into fists in frustration.

“What would you have had me do?” the man asked, in that calm voice that just grated on Dick’s nerves. They weren’t discussing the fucking weather.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe put that psychotic fucker in the ground a decade ago?” Dick snapped hotly, his temper starting to run away from him.

Bruce gave him a long look, the one that used to make Dick feel like he was three inches tall. “You’ve been through a trauma,” the man started but Dick wasn’t having it.

“If you’d had the balls to do it back then, none of this would have happened,” he snarled. “I wouldn’t have been shot when I was seventeen, Jason wouldn’t have died, Barbara would still be able to w—.”

“ENOUGH!”

The machines shrieking as Dick’s heart rate tripled in tempo. It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. It took a lot to make Bruce break, to lose his temper like that. Dick had never managed it before. He was used to the cool detachment and the silent disappointment, but not this. He’d never seen the man lose control like this.

“Do you think I don’t want to?” Bruce asked, voice soft and dangerous. “After everything he’s done? After everything he’s put my family through? Given half the chance, I’d rip him apart and I’d feel good about doing it.”

Oh, Dick had seen Bruce angry. The man had a temper. He was only human, however much he pretended not to be. He’d seen the man upset, after losing people he was convinced he should have been able to save. He’d seen Bruce scared, the night the Joker shot him. But this was a side Dick hoped he never saw again. It was a side the man clearly kept well hidden and it scared the shit out of Dick to see it now. He sat frozen, heart a heavy lump in his throat, watching as Bruce wrenched back some semblance of self control.

“But I can’t,” the man stated, unclenching his fists with visible effort as he regained his calm. “We have rules for a reason, Dick.”

“And I get why you have that rule Bruce, I really do,” he replied, not ready to back down yet. “But this has to be the exception.”

Bruce took a breath, crossing his legs as he shifted into what Dick had come to call ‘Lecture Mode’. “That’s a dangerous game,” the man replied. “You make one exception, what’s to keep you from making another, and then another? When does it stop? Where do you draw the line?”

Dick swallowed thickly. He’d heard this speech a thousand times before and he didn’t want to hear it again. Not now. On a good day, he would have agreed with the man. He understood the argument. Hell, he followed the rules himself. Always had, always will. Today however, when he had bullet holes in his body and painkillers sitting heavy in his stomach, was not a good day.

“There will always be someone else to take their place, maybe someone even worse,” Bruce continued. “It’s a fine line and it’s the only thing that separates us from them. And once you cross that line, there’s no coming back.”

“So you’re saying Jason’s a lost cause?” Dick accused, anger bubbling under his skin.

“I’m saying he made his choices,” Bruce replied quietly.

“He didn’t choose shit, he died!”

“And when he came back, he chose revenge. He let his rage consume him. There’s nothing I can do.”

God, he was so infuriating.

“Nothing…jesus christ, you could try talking to him for a start!” Dick cried, feeling tears of frustration prickle at his eyes.

The look that Bruce gave him shook him to the core. “I can’t give him what he wants,” the man replied softly. “And he won’t accept anything less.”

Dick had nothing to say to that. He swallowed thickly, throat feeling swollen and blocked. He should have known better than to try and argue this with Bruce. The man never gave an inch, on anything. He didn’t know why he was expecting this to be any different. So he just stared out the window and said nothing else.

“I can’t help him,” Bruce murmured. Dick couldn’t help but scoff, not bothering to turn around. A gentle touch soothed over his arm and his head snapped around to find Bruce leaning forward, one big hand wrapped around his wrist. “Which is why I’m very glad he has you.”

Dick gapped at the man, unable to make words work. Bruce just gave him a sad smile, understanding weighing heavy in his eyes. He gave Dick’s arm a gentle squeeze and showed himself out, leaving the younger man struggling to breathe in the wake of such an uncharacteristic display.

 

 

Dick hated bedrest. He hated feeling useless, reliant on the others around him to take care of him. He hated feeling weak. Alfred was a harsh taskmaster however, and would guide him back to bed with a stern scolding whenever he caught the acrobat attempting to sneak out. How the man managed to catch him every time was another mystery of the Englishman Dick figured he’d never manage to solve. The only reason he didn’t try the window was that even he realized there was no way he could scale down the side of the mansion with a holes in his side and shoulder.

Thankfully Tim was there to help stave off the boredom. He’d challenge him to video games or bring his homework into the room and simply inhabit the same space. Barbara came to visit a few times and of course Alfred was always in and out. Bruce didn’t visit again since that first time and Dick was honestly grateful for it. He wouldn’t know what to say if he did.

The entire time he didn’t hear a word from Jason.

He really didn’t expect the man to visit or anything like that. He knew the manor held too many ghosts for the younger man. He just would have liked some sort of signal that the younger man was alright. He’d called the burner number Jason had given him after enough nagging, leaving a few messages and sending a handful of texts. No reply, no word. Nothing. And he couldn’t do anything but swallow down the worry that gnawed at his gut like a rot.

 

Finally, he was allowed to go home, with a bagful of antibiotics and painkillers and extra bandages even though he insisted that he had a fully stocked medicine cabinet at his apartment. “No sense depleting your own stores when there is plenty to go around here,” Alfred pointed out as he ignored Dick’s outstretched arm and placing it in Tim’s waiting hand.

He returned to an empty apartment. Everything as it had been when they’d left the night he got shot. The same dishes were stacked in the rack beside the sink, the blankets on the couch folded the exact same way. The door to the bedroom was closed. Dick eyed it for a moment before sitting gingerly down on the couch.

He couldn’t keep the harsh breath from sizzling out between his teeth. No matter how carefully he moved, everything still aggravated his abs. Whenever those muscles flexed, the stitches pulled. The painkillers he’d taken at the mansion were wearing off now, leaving the incisions extra sensitive and sore.

“You sure you’re okay?” Tim asked for the fortieth time.

“I’m fine,” Dick huffed.

Tim gave him a look like he didn’t believe him but didn’t call him out on it. He poured him a glass of water, setting it by his elbow along with the bottles of pills. “Two of these now, two more along with two of these before you go to bed,” Tim ordered sternly, pointing to the bottles individually before crossing back to the kitchen as something beeped. “I put the schedule on the fridge. Take them with food,” he added as crossed back and set a bowl of steaming soup next to the pills.

“Yes mother,” Dick drawled, reaching over to shove the crackers into his mouth.

“Just don’t slip in the shower and expect me to come running because you’re too stupid to take proper care of yourself, okay?” the younger boy snarked, shrugging on his jacket. Dick flipped him off with a chuckle, and immediately regretted it as his abs flexed against the stitches again. “Case in point,” Tim muttered, seeing him grimace. He paused, real concern flickering across his face. “Need anything before I go?” he asked.

“Naw,” Dick replied, waving a hand in his direction. “I’m good. Go do whatever it is you kids do these days. Car surfing, snapchat filters, the cinnamon challenge.”

Time snorted rudely. “God, you’re so weird.”

“Hey, no making fun of the invalid!” Dick called out. The only response he got was the door clicking shut. Dick let his breath hiss out through his teeth, tense and knotted muscles aching. He snatched up the slim orange bottle, shoving aside the pain of the reach. After a brief struggle with the child proofing, he shook four pills into his palm.

“He’s gone,” he called out. “You can come out now.”

A soft click of a door opening behind him prefaced the quiet padding footsteps across the hardwood and then movement flickered in his peripheral vision. “How’d you know I was here?” Jason asked softly, uncharacteristically timid sounding.

“Bedroom door wasn’t closed when I left,” Dick said, eyeing the bigger man. He looked fine, if not a little tired. His face was unreadable, shut down and iron controlled. He was hovering between Dick on the couch and the adjacent chair, like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome or not. Dick hadn’t decided either way on that yet.

“You disappeared after the hospital. I was worried,” he continued, popping the pills in his mouth and swallowing them dry. He wanted to be angry. The vanishing act Jason pulled, just when things started to seem like they were getting better. If Dick wasn’t so tired and in pain then maybe he would have be angry. As it was, he couldn’t really muster up anything beyond a resigned disappointment.

“Don’t do hospitals. Can’t stand the smell,” the bigger man said stiltedly, arms hanging stiffly by his sides. Maybe it was the truth but it just sounded like an excuse to Dick.

“You didn’t answer my texts either.”

Jason shifted, something flickering in his eyes as his composure cracked jut a little. His tongue darted out, wetting his lower lip nervously. “How are you feeling?” he asked, child-like quiet in a very blatant attempt to change the subject. Dick decided to let him have it.

“Like shit,” he snorted, wishing the pain killers would just kick in already. “No wait, like someone shot me,” he amended, knowing he was being a bit of a shit and not caring. “Yeah, that’s it.” He immediately felt bad as he saw the flinch that flickered across Jason’s cheek. Dick stifled a wince. Just like Jason to blame himself for Dick getting shot even though he was probably the only reason Dick was breathing right now.

“Ah, fuck, don’t listen to me,” Dick grumbled guiltily. “Pain meds always make me loose lipped. Wasn’t your fault, shouldn’t be taking it out on you,” he added begrudgingly, closing his eyes against a soft roll of nausea.

The look Jason shot him practically screamed he didn’t believe him, that somehow it was all his fault. “You want something to eat?” Jason asked before Dick had a chance to say anything.

Dick shook his head, aware of the way the movement thrummed heat across his temples. “Tim left soup,” he replied. Jason gave him a sour look, the first thing that didn’t seem blank or guilty.

“Which you haven’t eat.”

“I ate…the crackers,” Dick fumbled, gesturing helplessly in the direction of the soup. Jason just rolled his eyes. Quick as a blink, he snatched the pill bottle from Dick’s hand, ignoring his protests and weak attempts to grab it back.

“You’re supposed to take these with food, dumbass,” Jason scolded.

“I ate the crackers!” Dick snapped, irritated. He went for stern but it just came off as sullen. The yawn at the end didn’t help matters.

The ghost of a smirk flickered at the corner of Jason’s lips. “Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll make you some real soup, not this reheated Campbell’s shit.”

“Hey, that’s Alfred’s cooking your knocking,” Dick retorted, snapping his mouth shut against a roll of nausea. The pain meds were making his stomach roll threateningly. He swallowed thickly, the crackers having made his mouth dry.

“I know Alfred’s cooking. That ain’t it,” Jason was saying as he concentrated on making his stomach behave. There was a pause and then a soft thump to his left. He glanced down startled, staring at the pillow that suddenly appeared there. “Sleep,” was said in a low rumble. His eyes flicked up to meet Jason’s pale ones. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he promised.

“You weren’t the last time,” Dick’s traitor mouth said, words spilling out before he could stop them. Jason’s face shut down instantly, closing off like a door being slammed in his face. He figured that would be it. He carefully got himself horizontal, stomach muscles screaming. His head barely hit the pillow when he heard three words, spoken so softly he wasn’t sure he hadn’t just imagined them.

“I’ll be here.”

He glanced up sharply, staring at the other man’s retreating back as he headed into the kitchen, the offending bowl of soup in hand. He wanted to push it further. He wanted to know why. This yo-yoing was getting old. But sleep was a siren’s song that refused to be ignored. The apartment was blurring sideways and finally Dick couldn’t keep his eyes open.

 

 

Dick woke up to darkening windows, the smell of something smokey and delicious, and an empty apartment. He closed his eyes against the numb feeling swimming around in his head. He was getting tired of being surprised and disappointed by the younger man. Then a soft scrape of paper had him twisting his head around behind him.

“You’re here,” he murmured in surprise. Jason raised an eyebrow at him from over the top of the worn paperback in his hands. Wuthering Heights glared at him in a curling font, paper peeling and worn down.

“Don’t sound so surprised, pretty bird,” Jason smirked, slapping the book down on the side table with a sharp slap. “You want soup?” Dick really didn’t. He never had an appetite when on pain meds. He opened his mouth to say no and his traitor stomach gurgled. Jason’s smirk grew, showing teeth, and he got to his feet.

That’s when Dick’s back decided to seize. A pained grunt slipped through his lips and he ground his teeth together as his muscles spasmed and twitched. Then hands were on him, helping him to roll onto his side. A pillow was shoved between his knees. A hand rubbed soothing circles against his upper back as the muscles clenched and released painfully. Finally the muscles began to relax, the fit subsiding. “Okay Goldilocks, this isn’t the bed for you,” he heard Jason tease before arms were sliding underneath him and he was being lifted up against a broad chest.

“ ‘m not a fuckin’ invalid,” he protested weakly as he found himself being carried bridal style across the apartment. Jason just chuckled and carefully laid him out on the bed, which was far firmer and more comfortable than the couch.

“I’ll get you some soup,” Jason said softly.

Dick watched lazy eyed through the door as Jason moved into the kitchen. He could just see a sliver of the man through the hallway. The big man was ladling soup into a smaller pot even thought was a microwave inches to his left. He watched as Jason combed restless fingers through his overgrown hair. They were always so graceful, even when tense and shaking from a panic attack, when they were wrapped around the barrel of a gun or clenched into a harsh fist. When they brushed through his hair and traced down across his jaw.

Dick’s breath stuttered in his chest as hazy memory seeped like molasses to the front of his brain. The memory of a post surgery haze, of a familiar rumbling voice, of lips brushing his own. That same voice was speaking now, accompanying a set of broad shoulders, wicked teal eyes, and a steaming bowl of soup. “And don’t blame me if you choke to death because you were too stubborn to sit up properly and—.”

“You kissed me.”

In any other situation, it would have been comical. Jason froze, half bent over himself with the soup in one hand and the other hovering just above Dick’s shoulder. His eyes were wide, lips parted and trembling just a little. “You kissed me,” Dick said again, disbelief colouring his tone. “After I got out of surgery, I remember.”

“I…” And then like an engine being jumpstarted, Jason’s mask snapped into place. A sardonic smirk split his face as he straightened up. “Jesus, how many of those pills did you take?” he snarked. Anyone else might have bought it, played right into the deception. But Dick saw the way the smirk didn’t reach Jason’s eyes, and the way his hand was white knuckled around the bowl of soup.

“I remember—,”

“You don’t remember shit,” Jason hissed sharply, leaning forward aggressively. Soup sloshed over his hand and onto the floor. The heat seemed to make him check himself. He pulled away, placing the bowl down on the side table with aggravated care. “You’re just…you’re confused,” he amended. Your body’s been through hell, you’re drugged up to your eyeballs—.”

“Jason,” Dick tried.

“I'm not talking about this while you’re high as a kite,” Jason interrupted sharply, tossing a spoon down next to the bowl with a sharp clatter. For all his aggressive words, fear was lurking behind it. It was colouring everything and it only grew stronger once he spoke. Like he realized what he’d just given away.

  
“So you did kiss me.”

“I…,” Jason fumbled, mouth opening and closing uselessly. “That’s not what I meant.”

“So what _did_ you mean?”

“Nothing happened, okay? So just drop it,” Jason snapped, something painfully pleading in his eyes just begging him to drop it. Dick ignored it.

“I thought we’d moved past the lying,” he said softly. Jason rocked back on his heels like he’d been physically struck. He planted his hands on his hips, eyes flicking from Dick to the door and back again. With gritted teeth, Dick heaved himself into a sitting position. Jason rocked back, keeping an equal distance between them. “Why are you here, Jason?” he asked with a sigh.

“Why do you keep asking me to stay?” the younger man snapped defensively as his entire body seemed to gravitate towards the door.

“Because I care about you,” Dick replied honestly. And then because he didn’t seem to be able to keep his mouth shut and because he couldn’t stand that look in Jason’s eye and because maybe, just maybe…. “A lot more than I probably should.”

Jason’s eyes snapped down to his and held. A million things flickered across his face and gave nothing away at the same time. Dick sat frozen, his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. He’d either said the perfect thing or he’d just royally screwed everything up.

“What are you saying?” Jason breathed.

“I don’t know,” Dick confessed with a whisper, unable to tear his eyes from those aqua rings. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m probably not saying any of it right. All I know is that I want you here in the morning to help figure it out.”

There it was. It was out in the open. Jason just stared. He stared at him wide eyed, chest stuttering as his breathing became uneven. Dick stared back, barely daring to breathe. It felt like ages past, but it probably wasn’t more than a handful of seconds. He was getting lost in aqua, chest tightening around his lungs, when finally the younger man broke the stalemate.

With a visible effort, his throat rolling with the force of his swallow, Jason pulled his composure back around himself. He scrubbed a hand down his face, eyes flicking down to the ground. “You should..ah, you should get some rest,” he said in a rough whisper as he took a few shuffling steps backwards towards the door.

“Don’t,” Dick breathed. “Don’t you dare run when I’m in no shape to go after you.”

“No, I’m not…I…,” Jason cleared his throat noisily, looking everywhere but at Dick as he kept backing up. “I just…I gotta clean up the kitchen.”

“It’ll keep till morning,” Dick tried to reason. To try and keep him from running. To try and keep him here.

“No, I…,” Jason stuttered, shaking his head back and forth aggressively enough for his hair to whip across his eyes. He was almost out the door now, hands restless as they clenched into twitching fists. “You can’t let the pots sit overnight or else you’ll never get ‘em clean.”

“Jay, please.”

“Get some sleep, Dick,” was the last thing he heard Jason say before the bedroom door closed with a soft click. Dick was thrown into semi darkness. Jason hadn’t turned on any lights. In the shadows, Dick’s breath sounded ten times louder. The burning sensation at the corners of his eyes slipped down his cheeks and he clenched them shut.

 

It was late. Very late. Dick wasn’t totally sure if he’d fallen asleep or not. It was hard to tell in the dark. He’d managed to roll over onto the shoulder that didn’t have a hole in it. He’d wedged a pillow between his knees, which helped his back some. Nothing helped the aching sensation in his chest.

That is until the door behind him clicked open.

Soft feet padded across the floor and the bed behind him dipped. A warm breath brushed the back of his neck, tickling the back of his ear. Jason made no other move to touch him and Dick didn’t try either. He just closed his eyes and listened to the other man breathe.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter! I've been super sick and work has been crazy. Thanks for sticking around! Hope it was worth the wait. As always, feedback is my fairy dust! xx

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I've never written for this fandom before. Never even entertained it until I saw Under The Red Hood and got inspired. Please let me know if you enjoyed the read! Feedback is my fairy dust!
> 
> Also, in regards to a commented question. There isn't necessarily a TPB quote in every chapter. Each chapter name is a quote, but sometimes I can't figure out how to weave a quote into the actual dialogue. This is one such chapter.


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